Percepção dos pais em relação à morte de seus filhos em unidade de terapia intensiva pediátrica

• Autor(a) principal: Halal, Gilda Maria de Carvalho Abib El
• Data de Publicação: 2010
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional PUCRS
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10923/4758
• topic: MEDICINA; PEDIATRIA; PAIS E FILHOS; MORTE; UNIDADES DE TERAPIA INTENSIVA PEDIÁTRICA

Objective: To assess the perception of parents of patients who died in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) about the care given by health staff in the moments preceding the death of their children. Methods: Exploratory-descriptive study with a qualitative approach. Settings: PICU of Hospital Sao Lucas, Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul and Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre. Subjects: 15 parents of children who died from April to September 2008. Data collection was performed through three steps: (a) The researchers contacted the parents through a phone call to invite them to attend to the hospitals, (b) At the hospital, the doctors who assisted the children clarified doubts about the therapy offered, results of exams and decisions regarding end of life, (c) A semi-structured interview, recorded in audio, was carried out by researchers who had not participated of the care of children. Data analysis was performed using the technique of thematic content analysis. Results: The analysis resulted in four categories: a) the moment of death in the PICU; b) talking with the attending physicians – possibility of understanding; c) parental involvement in decision making in the PICU; d) parental participation in research - moments of unburdening and the possibility of satisfaction. The results show that parents lack a peaceful environment where they can adequately carry out the goodbyes at the time of death of their children. They emphasized the solidarity provided by the nursing staff at this point and the little involvement of the medical team. The opportunity to revisit the process of their children’s death with the team physician was considered positive. Parents felt that they did not have an effective participation in decision taking. It was noticeable that their participation was conditioned to prior decisions taken by the health staff. Conclusion: The research shows that the difficulty of communication between health staff and parents is a factor that impacts negatively on the decision taking and grieving processes. Moreover, it stresses the importance for the parents to reassess the moment of the children’s death with the health professionals at some point after death.