Definitions of hope. A myriad of definitions and descriptions of hope have appeared in the literature. Snyder and colleagues17 defined hope as a cognitive set that is comprised of agency, goal-directed determination and pathways, and planning of ways to achieve the desired goals. In psychiatry, hope is a dynamic, and future referenced variable that is concerned with the individuals’ achievement of his/her positive goals, outcomes, or states judged as being at least potentially possible.18 In nursing, Parse’s19 human becoming perspective defined hope as a universal lived experience of health propelled with the envisioned possibilities of everyday living; to hope is to “recognize the limitations in situations, while believing that opportunities exist”. Hope according to Dufault and Martocchio20 is a “multidimensional dynamic life force characterized by a confident yet uncertain expectation of achieving future good which, to a hoping person, is realistically possible and personally significant” (p. 380). It is a process of anticipation that acts as a way of thinking, feeling, acting and relating that is focused towards fulfilling what is personally meaningful