Table 1: Qualitative Evidence Addressing Nurses ’ Characterizations of Their Advocacy

Authors	Snowball (1996) [10]	Watt (1997) [11]	Vaartio, Leino-Kilpi, Salantera, Suominen (2006) [12]	Foley, Minick & Kee (2000) [17]	Chafey, Rhea& Spencer (1998) [18]
Sample	15 nurses in a large teaching hospital in the United Kingdom (UK). The sample included only nurses who had practiced for at least one year. The investigator believed that experience is needed to practice advocacy.	8 Australian nurses who practiced on two adult acute-care units in a large urban hospital.	22 patients and 21 nurses from four medical and four surgical units in Finland.	24 nurses who had served in a military operation in Bosnia and Hungary.	17 American nurses who practiced in hospital and community settings. Investigators’ aim was to establish a typical case of advocacy rather than to generalize.
Purpose	To explore nurses’ perceptions, understanding and experience of acting as a client advocate.	To explore and describe how nurses perceive the concept of client advocacy.	To describe the way advocacy is defined, the activities of advocacy, the way patients experience nursing advocacy. The focus of the interviews was procedural pain because the nursing responses are broad.	To explore the advocacy experiences of military nurses and describe their shared practices and common meanings.	To describe how nurses define and characterize advocacy and how they exercise the advocacy role.
Method	Data were collected by semi-structured interviews used to elicit a narrative account of participants' perceptions, beliefs and values related to advocacy. Emergent commonalities in the data were analyzed using a qualitative approach [28].	A 50-minute semi-structured interview was conducted with each participant. Participants were prompted to describe incidents that illustrated their personal meaning of advocacy. The theory of Glasser and Strauss [31] guided data analysis.	The data were collected through 30-70 minute individual interviews, following pilot interviews. Data were analyzed inductively using qualitative content analysis as described by Miles and Huberman [30]. The analysis was conducted twice over a span of 2 months.	Data were collected by open-ended, non-structured 30-60 minute interviews. Participants were asked to narrate practices of advocacy. A constant comparative method [27] was used to analyze the data. A research team interpreted the themes and categories that emerged.	Standardized, open-ended questions explored characterizations, conditions, and values thought to be influential in advocacy during a 60 minute interview. An intuitive-analytical process [29] was used to analyze the patterns and themes that emerged.
Findings	All participants stressed that advocacy is “predicated” on a therapeutic relationship. Seven of the 15 participants asserted that nurses and persons > share a common humanity” p. [72]. Two conditions were identified as fundamental to advocacy, quality nurse-client relationships and respect for inherent human characteristics, including the ability to make choices that are congruent with needs.	Two conditions were identified as fundamental to advocacy, quality nurse-client relationships and respect for inherent human qualities, including the ability to make choices that are congruent with personal needs.	Interpersonal dialogue, respect and empowerment were antecedents of nursing advocacy.	Advocacy was perceived as safeguarding client safety; engag[ing] in understand[ing] the dilemmas of the there are life as [client’s] life as [they are] actually lived”; embracing traits, such as empathy	Advocacy was described as providing clients with information to ensure they receive the care they deserve. Interpersonal relatedness was recognized as the core of advocacy, characterizing advocacy as “being a confidante”