Struggling Through a Difficult Time for Unemployed Persons

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to report the findings of an investigation of the lived experience of struggling through a difficult time for persons who are unemployed. Most research related to the experience of life transitions uses a crisis or stress-coping framework; however, this ex perience was studied through Parse's man-living-health theoretical per spective. The qualitative research methodology specified by Parse for the study of lived experiences was used to discern the meaning of struggling through a difficult time. The processes of this methodology are: participant selection, dialogical engagement, extraction-synthesis, and heuristic interpretation. Ten participants were included in the study. Participants' descriptions were tape-recorded and transcribed. Through dwelling with the raw data in the process of extraction-synthesis, es sences and propositions were identified for each of the 10 participants. Three common core concepts were extracted from the 10 propositional statements describing the experience. These concepts were then inter related to synthesize the structure of the lived experience stated as: Struggling through a difficult time is sculpting new lifeways in turbulent change through affirming self while feeling expanded by assets and restricted by obstacles in the midst of grieving the loss of what was cherished. These findings are discussed in relation to Parse's theory, other theoretical perspectives and research findings. Implications for nursing practice and further research are also described.

Keywords

Parse's Theory Struggling Transitions Unemployment Crisis

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