The significance of reflection - students’ lived experiences of caring encounters with patients in the primary health care setting

This study aimed to explore how students reflect on their caring encounter with a patient. For this purpose, the research has a reflective lifeworld and, as such phenomenological approach, utilizing individual written narratives as data. Before data collection, the students were educated in an approach to caring communication, supported by a life-world perspective. The students were offered a supplementary training session on the communication approach. Emphasis is placed on adopting an attitude that regards the patient as a subject with unique lived experiences. The participants were recruited from the Primary Health Care Specialist program. During the students’ clinical training, they encountered a patient and reflected upon the encounter afterwards. A reflective lifeworld research perspective was used to analyze the students’ narratives. It was found that students engaging in life-world-led encounters with patients presented various challenges, primarily in maintaining an open and flexible approach by bridling their own preunderstandings, attentively listening to patients’ narratives without interruption were highlighted as significant challenges. Remaining fully present in the moment to actively engage with patients’ descriptions was regarded by the students as both demanding and rewarding. The findings suggest the need for teachers to actually engage in reflective teaching in their professional contexts.