Palliative care: perception of nurses from the general hospital of Uberaba-MG

Abstract

The philosophy of palliative care, science and professional-patient relationship should not overlap but rather go hand in hand to ensure the dignity of the end of life of a patient. This is a qualitative research that aimed to identify the perceptions of nurses regarding palliative care. Twelve nurses from a general hospital with no palliative care unit were interviewed. For data processing the treatment of thematic analysis from the interviews were carried out. Two main thematic units were identified: the forms of care, and the difficulty of acceptance of life terminality. Results have shown that values, beliefs and experiences of life, besides the scientific technical expertise are essential to ensure the quality of palliative care.