Comunicação e cuidados paliativos: produção científica no âmbito da saúde.

Abstract

Palliative care consists of a set of actions that seek to improve the quality of life of patients and their families facing terminal illness. Following this thinking, verbal communication proves to be effective as a therapeutic measure and easy access for patients outside chance of cure therefore creates a link between the patient and health professionals, making the patient feel confident, and emotions from this process. The aim of this study was to characterize the scientific and production about palliative care, communication and nursing, using an integrative research. This is a survey of integrative literature review conducted in the Virtual Health Library, the databeses SciELO and LILACS in online journals, under Health, from 2000 to 2010, using the key words “palliative care”, “communication” and “nursing”. Inclusion criteria adopted for the selection of articles were: communication which reflect the nursing staff to patients in palliative care, which were indexed in the databases mentioned above published in Portuguese, between the period 2000 and 2010 and whose abstracts and texts were available online in its entirety. We excluded articles written in a foreign language and access fee. For the analysis of empirical material was chosen technique of thematic content analysis. The study sample consisted of 14 full-text publications disseminated in Portuguese, available in the database of the Virtual Health Library (VHL). The results indicated the year 2007 with the highest number of publications (28,57%), the most common type of publication was descriptive, exploratory qualitative (57,14%) and area of expertise and training of the authors was nursing (64,28%).Our analysis yielded the following categories: “Palliative care and communication”, “Communication and nursing staff” and “ Communication of bad news”. We conclude that the issue has received attention from researchers in the field of Health, in the order to be subject to human finitude unsettling. Moreover, the search for strategies that provide a better quality of life for terminally ill patients is part of everyday life for all health care professionals who are driven by a desire to do good for others.