Purpose To describe rehabilitation staff nurses’ perspective of hope, including hope-inspiring strategies.

Design An exploratory description design.

Methods Purposeful sampling was used to recruit staff nurses working in acute rehabilitation settings via a group mail to two groups of nurses working in southeastern United States. Semi-structured phone interviews, lasting 30–45 minutes, were scheduled, recorded and transcribed verbatim. Words and phrases were summarised, and a descriptive, interpretive summary was generated based on the frequency and interrelatedness of the words and phrases. Data was saturated after six female staff nurses from three rehabilitation settings were interviewed.

Results The most frequent descriptors of hope focused on improvement, something better, and something good. All nurses agreed that hope is tied to goals and serves as a motivating force. Hope fluctuates and can depend on the patient’s progress. A nurse’s own hope can positively influence a patient’s hope. Hope is inspired when rehabilitation nurses help patients achieve a sense of normal by treating them as individual persons. A potential hope protocol may consist of: treating the person as a person; praising accomplishments; and identifying areas to increase hope.

Conclusion A central meaning of hope was improving or something better, in the context of patients needing rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation nurses inspire hope by building relationships with patients, helping them maintain a sense of personhood, with words and actions emphasising goals.

Purpose To identify and describe hope in stroke-related non-medical public blogs. The guiding research questions is ‘How is hope depicted in stroke-related non-medical public blogs?’ Hope is an important concept in the holistic nursing practice of rehabilitation nurses.

Design This qualitative study used an exploratory, description design.

Methods Data was obtained from five non-medical public blogs that included one site used by six individuals and four other sites utilised by single persons (n=10). Six questions developed from the review of literature guided the analysis of words.

Results Rarely was the actual word ‘hope’ found in the five blogs reviewed, yet the comprehensive nature of hope was a thread throughout them. Bloggers’ words reflected the dynamic and multi-dimensional nature of hope, expectations and change. Hope was a motivating factor for bloggers.

Conclusion Hope is ‘visible’ in stroke-related non-medical public blogs. Nurses are positioned across the continuum of care, including acute and community rehabilitation, to support the dynamic power of hope through assessment and maintenance of hope during times of transition for patients and their relationship with others.

Grounded theory enables a researcher to move beyond description to construct a theory about a particular phenomenon. The theory is ‘grounded’ in the data of the research. This article, the first of two articles, offers an explanation about grounded theory methodology and provides an overview of the historical developments and different types of ‘thinking’ that underpin the ‘doing’ of grounded theory. It also discusses symbolic interactionism and its influence on grounded theory. Grounded theory is an approach commonly used in nursing research and more recently in rehabilitation nursing studies.