Lived Experiences of Ophthalmic Nurses in Managing Elderly Patients with Eye Conditions

Abstract

This study explored how ophthalmic nurses interpreted and made meaning of their lived experiences in managing elderly patients with eye conditions. An interpretive phenomenological design was employed at Grace Medical Center in the City of San Jose del Monte, Bulacan. Eight registered nurses with two to ten years of ophthalmic experience were purposively selected. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews, audio recordings, field notes, verbatim transcription, and researcher observations, and were analyzed using Colaizzi’s phenomenological method within an interpretive framework. The nurses described their work as a combination of clinical assessment, education, advocacy, coordination, adaptability, and holistic care. Their principal challenges involved sensory and cognitive communication barriers, patient anxiety and difficult behaviors, unaccompanied patients, treatment-adherence difficulties, emotional fatigue, high workload, understaffing, resource limitations, and organizational constraints. They responded through simplified and repeated explanations, teach-back and demonstration, family involvement, therapeutic communication, close monitoring, multidisciplinary collaboration, time management, protocol adherence, and outcome-based evaluation. Participants attached fulfillment and professional meaning to preserving vision, improving daily functioning, and helping elderly patients feel safe. The experience also strengthened their empathy, patience, communication, autonomy, clinical competence, and adaptability. The findings indicate that quality geriatric ophthalmic care depends on both relational nursing competence and institutional support. Continuing specialty education, adequate staffing and resources, strengthened patient-family teaching, preventive safety measures, collaborative practice, and staff well-being support are recommended.