Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences

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The substance of love when encountering suffering: an interpretative research synthesis with an abductive approach
KM Thorkildsen., K Eriksson and M Råholm

This article aims to increase the understanding of the essence of love when encountering suffering and hence contribute to theory development within the caring science paradigm. This interpretative research synthesis has a hermeneutical and abductive design that unfolds in three phases. The data included in the study consist of 15 peer-reviewed scientific articles. The interpretation of the articles is presented in the form of three themes: love as a holy power; love as fundamental for being; and love as an ethical act. These three themes were then further elaborated by abductive reasoning to form a pattern of three dimensions of the substance of love: love as holiness; love as communion; and love as an art. The conclusion of the study is that the health care system has an ethical demand to make love visible as the core feature of healing and alleviation of suffering. This study is innovative, it generates new theory, and also uses a new and innovative design combining hermeneutics, abduction and interpretative research synthesis.

Åshild Slettebø, Editor-in-Chief
Lennart Fredriksson, Associate Editor