Struggling with a difficult choice : a lived experience of human becoming

Choice is a universal experience. Whether it is choosing a lifestyle, to divorce, or to seek health care, health is inexorably linked to the process of choice. Sometimes choices can be decisively made; far more commonly choosing takes time as an individual contemplates alternatives and struggles to find meaning for events that allow a choice to be made. Given how commonly it occurs, it is logical to assume that struggling may be useful and may allow an individual to change, to grow, and to reach optimal health. Yet while struggling with a difficult choice is a universal human phenomenon, frequently related to health, little is known about this very human activity. What struggling is like, the role that struggling plays when an individual is dealing with a difficult choice, and how nurses can best interact with patients struggling with difficult choices is not empirically clear.