A Hermeneutic Phenomenological Approach to Studying Nurses’ Duty and Fear in Armed Conflict

Abstract

Introduction: Nurses in conflict zones face an impossible tension — they are expected to keep delivering care even as their own lives are at risk. Most existing research has documented outcomes like PTSD, but far less attention has been paid to how studies on nurses’ lived experiences of duty and fear are actually designed and conducted.

Aim: This article justifies Heidegger’s hermeneutic, interpretive, phenomenological use as the philosophical underpinning and the methodology while van Manen’s approach as both the methodology and methods used to guide in exploring how nurses experience duty and fear while working during armed conflict.

Methods: The study was grounded in Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology and operationalized through van Manen’s phenomenology of practice. In-depth, face-to-face interviews were conducted with seven nurses who had provided hospital-based care across two armed conflicts. Data were analyzed using phenomenological thematic analysis, progressing from thematic structures to thematic categories, which were then reflected through van Manen’s five lifeworld existentials. Heidegger provided the interpretive foundation for meaning-making, while van Manen structured the methodological processes of inquiry.

Results: The analytic process generated 75 thematic structures that were consolidated into 19 thematic categories and subsequently organized across van Manen’s five lifeworld existentials. These lifeworld-reflected categories yielded three general essences that capture how nurses navigated professional duty alongside fear, ethical tension, and the constant threat to their own existence. The findings demonstrate how hermeneutic phenomenology can produce structured yet existentially grounded interpretations of complex clinical experiences.

Conclusion: Grounded in Heideggerian hermeneutic phenomenology and operationalized through van Manen’s approach, this study demonstrates a coherent integration of philosophical interpretation and methodological execution. The approach offers a rigorous, transparent, and practice-oriented framework for examining deeply subjective nursing experiences in high-risk contexts, applied as a flexible and reflective guide rather than a rigid procedural sequence. By making the analytic process explicit, this article provides qualitative researchers with a replicable methodological blueprint that strengthens the credibility, interpretive depth, and applicability of phenomenological findings in nursing research.