The study is based on the assumption that a group of nurses did not acknowledge and describe the advanced cancer patients perspective and suffering systematically in the nursing diagnosis.
The aim of this study was to identify and describe the typical structure of the potential and actual signs of suffering that 25 nurses within palliative care described in nursing diagnoses. CS. Peirce's semiotic and phenomenological grounded theory of signs was used to identify potential and actual signs within 76 nursing diagnosis. Giorgi's phenomenological method was used as the essential method to identify and describe the typical structure of the potential and actual signs that were described in the diagnoses. 8 diagnoses referred to the patients' suffering related to psychosocial and existential problems. 68 diagnoses were primarily influenced by the nurses' observations and explanations of the patients' organism, behaviour and symptoms.
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