Caring experiences and challenges of families with patients in vegetative state

Having a vegetative patient in the family is a complicated and stressful experience. Caring such patients with complete disability at home is very challenging. The present study aimed at exploring the caring experiences and challenges of the families with patients in the vegetative state. In this qualitative study that was done from August، 2013 to Sep، 2014 in some provinces of Iran (Khuzestan، Tehran and Lorestan)، 17 vegetative patients’ caregivers including 14 family caregivers and 3 professional caregivers were entered to the study. Unstructured interviews and observations were used for gathering data. Data collecting was continued until saturating data and emerging main themes. Data analysis was performed by content analysis method. Caring challenges that families with vegetative patient were faced included in 5 main themes: education greed، undertaking hard caring، corrosive costs، limbo of words and emotional erosion. The finding of present study showed that all the families with vegetative patients during caring period were faced with various challenges. The main part of these challenges is related to policies of health system and some of them were related to knowledge level of the public. So، more attention to these challenges by authorities is recommended.