2. Methods 2.1. Study Design This s

2. Methods 2.1. Study Design This study used qualitative descriptive research design. Items indicated by Lugton et al. [11] as important principles of palliative care were employed, and the four items of communication, care, spiritual pain care, and prediction of worsening of symptoms were used as the study’s frameworks. 2.2. Definitions of Terms The definition of terminally ill used in this study was “the status of a person who cannot be cured, even with the application of multidisciplinary treatment, and aggressive treatment is rather considered to be inappropriate for the patient. Life prognosis is usually considered to be 6 months or less [14]”. 2.3. Data Collection In response to the explorative study aims, we used a purposive participant selection. We recruited nurses (HPN) who haven’t received special training in order to search for the feature of everyday nursing practice in hospice/ palliative care units, through a chief nurse. The participants of the study were 16 HPNs. They were women of age 20 to 40 years with an average of 12.2 ± 5.4 years of clinical experience as a nurse, and an average of 4.1 ± 2.9 years of clinical experience in hospice/palliative care. The average length of the interview was 32.4 ± 5.2 minutes. Semi-structured interviews were conducted by one researcher. Individual interviews were conducted in Japanese language using the following interview guiding questions:  What do you do that is important for communication with a terminally ill patient?  What important care do you perform?  What kind of spiritual pain care do you perform?  From what do you predict worsening of symptoms? Interviews were held in a place where privacy could be secured, such as a meeting room. Content of the interview was recorded with an IC recorder with the participants’ consent, and a verbatim record was prepared. Data collection was done from June to August 2013