語りにみる入院高齢者のスピリチュアルニーズ

Spiritual Needs Discovered through Narrative by Elderly Inpatients

要旨

　本研究の目的は，人生の回想を含む自由な語りの中から見出された入院中の高齢者のスピリチュアルニーズを記述することである．スピリチュアルニーズはその個人の生と密接に関連している．そのため，個別事例を質的に記述する研究方法を選択した．本稿では5 名の研究参加者のうち，93 歳の女性A さんの語りに焦点を当てた．A さんとは約5 カ月関わり，その間，非構成的面接を16 回行った．面接で語られた内容を繰り返し読み，スピリチュアルニーズを表していると思われる文脈を抽出し，ストーリーを構成した．

　語りからは，＜生きる意味を見出したい＞＜今，生きている実感を味わいたい＞＜来世での再会のためにゆるしを願いたい＞がスピリチュアルニーズとして見出された．加齢とともに失うものが多い高齢者にとって，食や排泄といった日常の当たり前ともいえる生活場面で味わう“生きている実感”は，たとえ一瞬でもその人の生を生き生きと支えるものであった．見出されたスピリチュアルニーズをもとに，高齢者看護においては，回想を含む語りを傾聴することの重要性とともに，日常生活ケアの重要性が示唆された．

Abstract

　The purpose of this study was to explore the spiritual needs through narratives by elderly inpatients. Spiritual needs are closely connected with the individual's life, so this research takes a form of a case study. Participants were five elderly inpatients. This paper focuses on a narrative of Mrs. A who is a 93 years old woman. The researcher kept in contact with her for five months, and unstructured interviews were held sixteen times. The researcher read the narrative texts repeatedly and from them extracted of the context of the interviewed woman's spiritual needs.

　As a result, the following spiritual needs emerged : “I want to find the meaning of my life.”; “I want to taste my actual feeling of living.”; “I want to ask others’ pardon to meet them again in the next world after my death.” From the findings of this research, the importance of listening to the narratives of elderly people including recollections of their lives, and the importance of their daily care were found. The elderly are losing many things as they grow older. Therefore, their “actual feelings of living” experienced in their lives such as eating and excretion, which seem to us very natural, have supported their lives vividly.