Family Practices during Life-Threatening Illness: Exploring the Everyday, 2007-2008

<P>Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.</P><br>This is a qualitative data collection. These data were collected as part of a PhD project which explored the experiences of individuals living in a family where a member was dying or had a life-threatening illness. This was an ethnographic study which combined informal, in-depth interviews with nine families and participant observation on a hospice ward. Participant observations and the interviews from one family have not been archived due to consent restrictions; therefore the collection comprises data from eight families. Broadly the research aims were: <ul><li> to explore how everyday family life is pursued when someone in the family has a life-threatening or terminal illness</li><li>to ask what families are doing at this time</li><li>to examine how relationships, family practices, familial identities and everyday family lives are experienced - particularly how they are sustained and/or changed when families encounter illness, dying and death</li><li>to also consider how family lives are experienced in a less every day and familiar context, by asking what might be significant about a hospice inpatient ward as a setting for family life during the illness process and especially nearing the end-of-life</li></ul> These data are under embargo until October 31st 2014 at the request of the depositor. After that, the data will be available only with the express permission of the depositor.<br>
<br><br><B>Main Topics</B>:<BR><br>The data collection deposited includes 37 in-depth interviews with members from eight different families. The consistent themes covered in the interviews include: <ul><li>facing death</li><li>living with life-threatening illness</li><li>everyday routines</li><li>family life and relationships</li></ul>