A dor e o câncer : compreendendo a vivência da equipe de enfermagem no cuidado com a criança

Abstract

Dealing with pain is a traumatizing experience for those who suffer from or for those who care. It is extremely hard to be with, hear, feel, sympathize and deliver care to a person in pain. These feelings are exacerbated facing a child in pain. A child stands for innocence, tenderness, beauty, bringing about pure feelings in the adult, which had to be concealed in order to survive in a world of competition, indifference and insensitiveness. Such a difficulty in coping with a child in pain is very common among health professionals. This study objectified to understand nursing experience in the process of caring a child in pain due to cancer. A phenomenological methodology was used. Data were gathered by means of an interview whose guiding question was: What is it like to cope with a child in pain due to cancer? Eleven (11) employees from a nursing team participated in this study, as follows: assistants, technicians, nurses from a Hemato-Onco Pediatric Unit of a Pediatric Hospital in Curitiba/Parana State, Brazil. Data were analyzed and grouped in 8 categories: identifying pain in a child with cancer, information shortage bringing about a cyclical process, pain as a commonplace for the team, involvement with the child, following up changes, helplessness facing pain and death, family playing a supporting role in caregivers' pain, loneliness, sadness and ambiguity. Results pointed out features which entail: nursing team's disregard to scientific knowledge on pain, experience as a way to assess pain, constrained use of pain assessment scales, feeling of helplessness on the part of the nursing team to deliver care to the child in pain, loneliness and sadness when dealing with the child, the importance of family presence during hospitalization. The ambiguity feeling is present in all the subjects' accounts.