Weaning patients from mechanical ventilation is a complex process that also affects family members, yet their perspectives remain understudied.Aim To explore the lived experiences of family members of patients being weaned from mechanical ventilation in intensive care.Design A qualitative, deductive design was used, inspired by the hermeneutic phenomenological research method described by van Manen.Methods Eight family members were purposively included. The data collection consisted of personal diary notes, written during the patients' weaning phase, and individual semi-structured interviews conducted after patient discharge from intensive care.Results The findings were related to meaningfulness and inherent strength experienced by the family members, which were enhanced by being present at the bedside, near the patient, and involved in care. Family members shaped a temporary structure for their new everyday lives and experienced hope when thinking about the future.Conclusions This study explores the lived experiences of family members, emphasising the importance of being near the patient, touching, maintaining contact, and communicating. Family members wish to be involved according to their preferences and capabilities. Such involvement creates meaningfulness, which further promotes family members' inherent strength. Healthcare professionals play a vital role, highlighting the advantages of adopting a person-centred approach towards the family members by considering their resources, capabilities, and suffering, which vary over time and among different persons. To care for family members during patient weaning, healthcare professionals need to understand their needs and contributions, making the delivery of person-centred care essential. This study highlights that person-centred care extends beyond the patient to include family members. Recognising and supporting families as active partners in the weaning process is essential, as their involvement strengthens the well-being of both patients and families.Implications for the Profession and/or Patient Care Healthcare professionals should recognise family members as active partners in the weaning process and adapt person-centred care to their individual needs and capacities.Patient or Public Contribution Only the family members of the patients were involved in the study.Reporting Method This study adhered to the COREQ criteria.

What is the purpose of sedation in intensive care (ICU) – and for whom do we sedate? At its core, sedation in intensive care should serve the patient. It is used to relieve patients’ suffering, enhance comfort, and ensure safety in mechanically ventilated patients who are exposed to invasive and often distressing procedures. By alleviating pain, anxiety, and physiological stress, appropriate sedation may facilitate recovery [1] and promote person-centred care [2]. In intensive care, person-centred care requires that we see beyond physiological instability and recognise the critically ill patient as a person whose dignity, relationships, and lived experience persist despite invasive treatments and life-sustaining interventions. As described by McCormack and McCance [3], person-centred care is grounded in respectful relationships between healthcare professionals, patients, and those significant to them, where care is shaped by the person’s values, needs, and preferences.

OBJECTIVE: Massage during childbearing has been shown to benefit women's health and well-being, such as reducing pain and stress and enhancing satisfaction with the labour experience. Despite these documented benefits, massage is not routinely offered as a complementary method by midwives within standard maternity care in Sweden, leaving women's lived experiences of massage in this context unexplored. Therefore, this study aimed to explore women's experiences of massage during childbearing.

METHODS: The research was conducted as a qualitative study using an inductive approach. Semi-structured interviews with 12 women in Sweden were carried out, and data were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS: Analysis of the data yielded one overall theme-seen, heard and touched-and three categories: being mentally present in the body, a vulnerability needed to be respected and sharing experiences. Massage promoted present-moment awareness, trust and safety and relieved pain and stress. It also strengthened the connection with one's own body and deepened closeness to both partner and unborn child. However, it was associated with vulnerability and the recall of bodily memories.

CONCLUSION: Massage during childbearing is a supportive practice that integrates physical and emotional well-being with mental recovery, making women feel seen, heard and touched. For optimal benefits and positive experiences, massage must be provided with respect to boundaries. This is particularly important because it may evoke sensitive memories, which involve a vulnerability that needs to be respected. Massage is a valuable complementary method alongside maternity care.

BACKGROUND: Weaning from mechanical ventilation is a complex and central intensive care process. This complexity indicates that the challenges of weaning must be explored from different perspectives. Furthermore, physicians' experiences and the factors influencing their decision-making regarding weaning are unclear.

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore and describe the factors influencing physicians' decision-making when weaning patients from invasive mechanical ventilation in Swedish intensive care units (ICUs).

METHODS: This qualitative study used an exploratory and descriptive design with qualitative content analysis. Sixteen physicians from five ICUs across Sweden were purposively included and interviewed regarding their weaning experiences.

FINDINGS: The physicians expressed that prioritising the patient's well-being was evident, and there was agreement that both the physical and mental condition of the patient had a substantial impact on decision-making. Furthermore, there was a lack of agreement on whether patients should be involved in the weaning process and how their resources, needs, and wishes should be included in decision-making. In addition, there were factors not directly linked to the patient but which still influenced decision-making, such as the available resources and teamwork. Sometimes, it was difficult to point out the basis for decisions; in that decisions were made by gut feeling, intuition, or clinical experience.

CONCLUSION: Physicians' decision-making regarding weaning was a dynamic process influenced by several factors. These factors were related to the patient's condition and the structure for weaning. Increased understanding of weaning from the physicians' and ICU teams' perspectives may improve the weaning process by broadening the knowledge about the aspects influencing the decision-making.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: The transition to motherhood is a life-changing period with dilemmas relating to meaning and relationships. These experiences are described as individual and can be related to existential questions and relationships with family and others, as well as whether healthcare professionals, when meeting with becoming mothers, miss promoting existential aspects. This study aimed to illuminate the meaning of becoming a mother during the transition to motherhood.

METHODOLOGICAL DESIGN: The study used an explorative design with a phenomenological hermeneutic approach. Data were collected through open-ended interviews with 22 mothers, eight of whom were pregnant at the time of the interview.

RESULTS: The meaning of becoming a mother was experienced as being profoundly touched and changed. By a sense of belonging and being present in the moment, mothers open up to the possibility of being profoundly emotionally affected, which is understood as essential to their meaning of becoming a mother.

CONCLUSION: This study reveals that mothers experience intense emotions that can make them vulnerable and open to change, which seems to promote their development of themselves.

For fathers, the transition to parenthood can be experienced as an emotional phase. Fathers often state feeling overlooked and unsupported during their transition to parenthood. This study addressed this issue by exploring what it means to become a father-a qualitative design with a phenomenological hermeneutical approach. Data were collected through open-ended interviews with 19 fathers living in Sweden. The participants were encouraged to reflect on the meaning of becoming a father. Becoming a father means feeling connectedness to their child, their partner, and their friends, as well as creating strategies entailing flexibility, engagement, management, support, and solitude in their new situation. Fathers use digital media for support to create strategies, but it can evoke anxiety. The meaning of becoming a father concludes that they are deeply affected by the new situation. To support fathers during their transition to parenthood, midwives and child healthcare nurses should facilitate reflective conversations with them about their experiences of becoming a father. This study was guided by the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research Checklist.

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to illuminate the experience of caring touch in intensive care from the perspectives of patients, next-of-kin, and healthcare professionals.

Design and Method: This study was explorative, and data were collected through qualitative observations (n = 9) with subsequent interviews (n = 27) at two general intensive care units. An inductive approach was embraced to be open-minded to the participants' experiences.

Findings: The results are presented in one generic category-caring touch creates presence-which generated five subcategories: to touch and be touched with respect, touch as guidance and communication, touch causes suffering, touch creates compassion, and touch creates security.

Conclusion: When the ability to communicate with words is lost, it is body language that reveals what a person is trying to express. Nurses create a way of being present with the patients by touching them, to communicate I am here for you. Caring touch is a tool to show compassion and respect and to protect the integrity of the lived body. The caring touch is soothing and comforting for the patient and next-of-kin and creates security. It also helps to awaken the motivation to get healthy, which is needed in an environment that is foreign.