Prazer e sofrimento dos trabalhadores de enfermagem no cuidado ao idoso em instituição de longa permanência

• Autor(a) principal: Mariano, Pâmela Patricia
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da Universidade Estadual de Maringá (RI-UEM)
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.uem.br:8080/jspui/handle/1/2437
• topic: Profissionais de enfermagem; Satisfação no trabalho; Idosos; Enfermagem; Instituição de longa permanência para idosos; Saúde do trabalhador; Satisfação no trabalho; Estresse psicológico; Brasil.; Nursing; Asylum for the elderly; Workers´ health; Satisfaction in work; Psychological stress; Brazil.; Ciências da Saúde; Enfermagem

Nursing work is fragmented, hierarchic and systematized in more or less complex activities which may generate a heavy physical and mental load on health professionals. This is due to several factors such as physical effort, intense work rhythm, long working hours and issues brought about by interpersonal relationship. Nursing personnel experience the patients´ sufferings and the finitude of life even though they experience the pleasure of having their work acknowledged and the recovery of people under their care. Nursing is divided into several activities one of which is working in Institutions for the Elderly that help old people, whether dependent on not on others, in their social vulnerability. In these homes for the elderly nurses may experience moments of pleasure and suffering according to the organization of labor and the care for the elderly. Current investigation aims at knowing the nursing activities in these Institutions for the Elderly and their relationship with pleasure and suffering; identifying situations of pleasure and suffering within the labor process with elderly people in homes from the point of view of these professionals and the defensive strategies employed in laboral suffering. An exploratory, descriptive, qualitative study with the nursing personnel in homes for the elderly in a town in the state of Paraná, Brazil, is provided. Data were collected between April and September 2013 by non-participating observation and semi-structured recorded interviews and submitted to content analysis within the Labor Psychodynamics theory of Christophe Dejours. Within the context of nursing in Homes for the Elderly, the nurses experienced pleasure in their activities, in the conviviality among the nursing team and between the nursing team and the administration personnel, the freedom to modify work and the possibility of establishing bonds with the elderly people. Suffering is caused by physical efforts, accelerated and repetitive routine, deficient human resources, accumulation of responsibilities and lack of a full time doctor in the institution. With regard to caring for the elderly, the personnel´s pleasure resides in the acknowledgement of their work by the elderly due to the latter´s health recovery and to the establishment of affective bonds among the inmates. Suffering is experienced when dealing with certain aggressive behavior and resistance, the family distancing of the inmates, their functional decline and eventual death. Defense strategies comprises the thought that the elderly´s death is a natural fact and a form of closure to their sufferings, especially when they are critically sick, forgetting work issues when at home, isolation and affective non-involvement with the elderly. Such defenses make the professional work naturally, shunning any domination by its negative aspects which may make them sick. Health professionals could re-signify suffering and maintain themselves in equilibrium within the work-health-sickness relationship and professional satisfaction. Current study is meant to be a help for discussions on the pleasure-suffering relationship in the care of the elderly in institutions and for the planning of adjustments in work organization in homes for the elderly to improve the relationship between the nursing personnel and their working conditions.