“What Do We Know about Hope in Nursing Care?”: A Synthesis of Concept Analysis Studies

Abstract

Hope is a central concept within the nursing literature, which is crucial towards the development of nursing knowledge. Nursing teams play a crucial role in exploring the meaning of hope and promoting hope among patients and their families. This study aims to synthesize concept analysis studies of hope in the context of nursing care and to propose an evidence-based update of the definition of hope in the International Classification for Nursing Practice (ICNP®). Method: This is a literature review, involving the synthesis of studies concerning the concept analysis of hope in nursing practice. Peer-reviewed articles with fully accessible Portuguese or English text were considered. As we aimed to include a historical perspective of the concept, no restriction upon the time of publication was set. Articles were selected in March 2022 and updated in July 2023 using the Medline, CINAHL, and Scopus databases. The search terms used were “hope” AND “concept” AND “analysis” AND “nurs*”. Only articles written in English or Portuguese were included. Two reviewers conducted the research synthesis and report independently to minimize the risk of bias in the included studies. This paper adheres to the PRISMA checklist. To clarify the concept of hope as perceived by patients and develop hope as an evidence-based nursing concept, 13 studies were reviewed. The concept of hope, its attributes, antecedents, and consequences, as well as similar concepts, were studied by nurses and synthesized into a definition. The identified antecedents include pivotal life events, stressful stimuli, and experiencing satisfaction with life. The analysis of its attributes, antecedents, and consequences has contributed to understanding its relevance in nursing care and provided a proposed update of hope in the ICNP®. This review provides conceptual clarity on how hope is defined and used in nursing practice and the potential factors that may impact the promotion of hope to provide opportunities for future nursing research.