Aim: This article reports a study to examine the meaning of hope from the perspective of Chinese advanced cancer patients in Hong Kong.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of advanced cancer patients recruited from the palliative care unit of a local hospital. Data were saturated after 17 participants were interviewed. Qualitative content analysis was adopted to analyse the data.
Findings: Hope as experienced by the participants was found to consist of five components: living a normal life, social support, actively letting go of control, reconciliation between life and death, and wellbeing of significant others.
Conclusions: While hope is related to the wellbeing of patients with advanced cancer, successful palliative care partly depends on an awareness of the importance of hope in the end-of-life context and cultural sensitivity to the meanings behind it from the patients' own perspective.