ABSTRACT
As Giorgi (1989) warned: “lack of exposure to phenomenological philosophy results in a limited understanding of the phenomenological method and its demands” (p. 71). Phenomenology is both a philosophy and a method. The philosophy of phenomenology provides the foundation for the method. This chapter on the state of the science of descriptive phenomenology in nursing research begins with a description of Husserlian philosophy which provides the underpinnings for this method. Next, the procedure used to review the literature on descriptive phenomenological studies conducted by nurse researchers for the past 20 years is detailed. The results of this extensive search are then discussed. The methods for the three most frequently used descriptive phenomenological methods by nurse researchers are identified and compared. Then the general topics of the phenomena most often studied by nurse researchers in descriptive phenomenological studies are described. Comparisons across countries are included in this section. In the last part of this chapter an illustration of the use of Colaizzi’s (1978) method of descriptive phenomenology is provided. This study of the experience of subsequent childbirth following a previous traumatic birth (Beck & Watson, 2010) is one of the most recent studies in the author of this chapter’s research program on traumatic childbirth and its resulting posttraumatic stress disorder.
