Suffering and Illness Insights for Caregivers

Drawing on her clinical experience with people in distress and on a review of the literature of suffering, the author, a nurse, presents a model of suffering and its common characteristics so that caregivers can learn to identify, relieve, and prevent suffering. She sensitizes clinicians to perceive suffering and transcend the denial of suffering in modern health care, and discusses the ways in which patients find significance in suffering, the role of empathy and compassion in caring for suffering patients, and the circumstances in which patients unnecessarily suffer.