Existential pain—an entity, a provocation, or a challenge?

“Existential pain” is a widely used but ill-defined concept. Therefore the aim of this study was to let hospital chaplains ( n = 173), physicians in palliative care ( n = 115), and pain specialists ( n = 113) respond to the question: “How would you define the concept existential pain?” A combined qualitative and quantitative content analysis of the answers was conducted. In many cases, existential pain was described as suffering with no clear connection to physical pain. Chaplains stressed significantly more often the guilt issues, as well as various religious questions ( P