CUIDADOS COM O CORPO PÓS-MORTE: percepção e atuação do Enfermeiro

Abstract

This monograph aimed to verify the humanization present in the perception and performance of the Nurse in the face of postmortem care. It is a study that seeks to know the emotions and feelings most commonly experienced by nurses when performing such care; analyze the factors that interfere with this process and suggest measures to make it more holistic and complete. This research is qualitative, hypothetical-deductive. Thus, a field survey was carried out through the application of questionnaires to nurses at a general hospital in the city of Varginha, southern Minas Gerais, in the month of October 2008. Twenty-seven nurses were interviewed at the hospital under study. The interview consisted of identification data and open-ended questions related to death, perception of the post-mortem care, emotions, feelings present during the interview. The results indicate that the majority of nurses are focused on administrative and managerial tasks and that assistance to the family of the deceased client is placed in the background. Nurses have demonstrated insufficient scientific knowledge related to post-mortem physiological changes, which may impair their care. With regard to the emotions and feelings experienced by nurses when they performed postmortem care, feelings of "sadness", "unpreparedness", "impotence", "pain", "relief", "regret", "regret" "," discomfort "," uprising ", which shows that, even with the constant experience with the process, nurses are sensitive to post-mortem care, although they are often labeled as professionals who are indifferent to the process, who do not engage emotionally with clients, and who do not have a humanized perception of the body of a deceased client.