This research was an attempt to make it possible to provide nursing care and health education meeting the need not of care givers but of patients by identifying the nature of patients' self regulation experiences. The specific objective of this study was; 1) to explore self regulation experiences of patients with adult disease. The phenomenological approach in qualitative studies is used to serve this purpose. Colaizzi's method is used for the phenomenological analysis of the data in this study, which were collected from 25 patients hospitalized in the internal medical ward and oriental medical ward of a Seoul hospital, suffering from adult disease such as hypertension, arteriosclerosis and diabetes mellitus. The research was conducted over a period of March to September, 1994. The investigator conducted participated observations and in-depth unstructured interviews which were audiotaped under the permission of patients. The investigator read the data repeatedly to identify and categorize significant statements, formulating meanings, themes and theme clusters. The result is categorized as follows; Self regulation activities, their barriers and predisposing factors of a disease. Thirteen theme clusters of self regulation activities related to health identified were: "maintaining diet regimen", "maintaining exercise regimen", "maintaining medication regimen", "maintaining oriental medical regimen", "maintaining health monitoring regimen", "maintaining self effort", "maintaining religious life", "maintaining social support systems", "maintaining peaceful mind", "maintaining moderation in life", "maintaining sincere attitude in life", "maintaining natural life", and "maintaining folk remedy". This findings confirm the fact that self regulation is complicatedly and diversely influenced by oriental medicine and folk remedy, and Korean traditional ideas melted in Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Shamanism, and modern medical care and western culture. Seven theme clusters of self regulation barriers identified were: "lack of knowledge and self awareness", "lack of social supports", "lack of awareness of need in continuous regimen and treatment", "dissatisfaction with hospital and health care provider", "lack of self management", "lack of will to combat illness", and "overconfidence in folk remedy". Four theme clusters of predisposing factors of a disease were: "cumulation of stressors", "fatalism", "careless life style", and "family history". In conclusion, this study will prove helpful not only in understanding clients in light of our traditional culture but also in providing them with the kind of nursing care and health education satisfying their demands and particularly cultural needs.