Nursing care to adult patients and their families during the dying process in the emergency room

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to understand the experience of nursing professionals on the care provided to adult patients and relatives who experience the dying process in an emergency room. Statements of 12 nursing professionals, being 8 technicians and 4 registered nurses of the emergency room of a high-complexity university hospital were analyzed. Data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews and evaluated according to Bardin’s content analysis. As a result, the theme entitled the relative’s mourning process emerged with two categories: alterity as an opening and suffering as a limit. when subjectivity, which was revealed under the principle of alterity, permeated the subjects’ actions, the nursing practices were targeted at the patients and their relative’s needs, but suffering as a limit imposed distancing by the professionals during care provision, even when it was perceived as necessary