Hope and despair: the awakening of hope following acute spinal cord injury—an interpretative study

The aim of this paper was to explore the patients’ experiences of hope during the first months following acute spinal cord injury. This qualitative study has a descriptive and explorative design. Data were collected by personal interviews (N=10) at a rehabilitation centre in Norway. A phenomenological-hermeneutic approach inspired by Ricoeur was used to extract the meaning content of the patients’ experiences. The findings revealed one main interpretation; the awakening of hope, expressed by two themes: hope and despair, and uncertainty. Awakening hopes, even sometimes silent hopes, constituted a contextual background in the immediate aftermath of spinal cord injury.