"Getting through"--a difficult nursing concept

This analysis of the research literature related to the nursing concept "enduring" was carried out on the background of the demand for evidence based nursing. The aim was to test with an exemplary concept to what extent this request is feasible and meaningful, if related to a concept describing patients' subjective experience. The state of the art of research literature on enduring contains a variety of problematic aspects: conceptual, theoretical, linguistic as well as problems originating in nursing's moral tradition. These have important implications for the application of the concept in nursing practice.