A percepção dos pais de crianças e adolescentes com câncer sobre a doença e a morte

• Autor(a) principal: Kreuz, Giovana
• Data de Publicação: 2009
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UERJ
• Texto Completo: http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/handle/1/4154
• topic: Children and youth cancer; Disease and death; Parents; Representations; Suffering; Representações; Doença e morte; Câncer infanto-juvenil; Pais; Sofrimento; CNPQ::CIENCIAS DA SAUDE::SAUDE COLETIVA

The present study focuses on the perception about disease and death of parents of children and adolescents with cancer. The field research was carried out trough interviews with fathers or mothers of children and adolescents with cancer. The interviews showed that when the parents perceive the physical symptoms of their children they usually take some measures; after the cancer has been diagnosed in their children they stay undecided between mentioning the name of the disease or maintaining it under disguise; they perceive the disease as something unbridled, malignant, dangerous. The doctors are seen as facilitators in the health disease process, but in some cases, also as those that will inform the family about the inevitable prognostic. The cancer changes the life of the family, both their daily routines and their values. Some parents believe that the cancer may affect all persons, but will probably develop or manifest itself only in some specific persons, epending on its emotional or physical situation. Here emerge the conceptions of genetics, of religion, of cause and effect, notions of guilt and punishment, mention of life histories to explain the disease. The parents mention that they think more about death after the advent of the disease. Components of faith, hope and elaboration to their anguishes appear many times in their talk. The study makes possible to understand how the parents perceive and represent the disease of their children with cancer, how they experience the possibility and the meaning of death, and how they start to understand the finitude of life after a hard personal and family ordeal.