The components of attentiveness in Oncology Care

Abstract

This article presents the first findings of a qualitative empirical study of caregivers' attentiveness in hospital oncology care. It takes a care ethical perspective, in which attentiveness is considered an indispensable element of good care. The data are derived from participant observation at the oncology department of a general hospital in the Netherlands. The analysis shows a descriptive exploratory model of attentiveness, which comprises a coherent set of the clusters perception (A), object finding (B), and space for attentiveness (C). The methodological output of this article is an important one: the presented descriptive model of attentiveness promotes further research into the characteristics and functioning of attentiveness in care. It is a fundamental step towards a grounded theory, as it enables a comparison of different cases prior to thematic analyses. The substantive outcomes of the study offer caregivers a tool for understanding and analyzing care practices from the perspective of attentiveness.