In Spain, there is a general tendency to conceal the prognosis from a terminally ill patient. We conducted grounded-theory-based, phenomenologi-cal, qualitative research on this using a final sample of 42 in-depth interviews with doctors and nurses from different fields. We found that most health professionals believe that although patients don't ask questions, they know what is happening to them. Many professionals feel bad when communicating bad news. In hospitals, doctors take responsibility for doing so. The attitudes of professionals are influenced by their sense of responsibility and commitment to the principle of patient autonomy, as well as to the level of their agreement with the cultural context. The tacit agreement of silence makes communication impossible: the patient does not ask questions, the health professional does not want to be interrogated, and family members don't talk about the disease and want health professionals to follow their example. This situation is detrimental to patients and their families and leads to suffering, low levels of satisfaction, and feelings of guilt and helplessness. Health care professionals must acquire the means and the skills for communicating bad news.
SUMMARYIntroduction: Could we offer a definition of suffering free from our own subjectivity? The aim of the current bibliographic review is to offer a definition of suffering, leaving its measurement aside as a secondary matter. Methods: Medline, Proquest and Scopus databases in English were reviewed and 30 articles were selected. Results: Most authors support the complementarity of pain/symptom and suffering. The definition offered by E. Cassell is the most broadly cited in the literature: "Severe stress state associated with threatening events for personal integrity. The suffering of a person is conditioned by society and culture. There are three types of strategies in order to detect and/or measure suffering: Clinical practice, qualitative and quantitative research. Discussion: It is necessary to go deeper in the concept of suffering in order to find a cross -cultural definition which takes into account individual and socio -cultural aspects. Instruments for the objective measure of the intensity of suffering have not been found. Suffering is a subjective experience.Key Words: Suffering, bibliographic review, detection, concept definition. RESUMENINTRODUCCIÓN; ¿Podríamos ofrecer una definición de sufrimiento que no esté sujeta a nuestra propia subjetividad? La intención de la presente revisión bibliográfica es ofrecer una definición lo más completa de sufrimiento, siendo secundaria la cuestión de su medición.MÉTODOS; Se revisaron las bases de datos de lengua inglesa Medline, Proquest y Scopus. y se seleccionaron 30 artículos.RESULTADOS; La mayoría los autores que abogan por la complementariedad de dolor/sínto-ma y sufrimiento. La definición de mayor calado en la literatura científica es la de E. Cassell; Estado de severo estrés asociado con eventos amenazantes para la integridad de la persona. El sufrimiento de una persona está condicionado por la sociedad y la cultura. Existen tres tipos de estrategias para detectar y/o medir el sufrimiento; práctica clínica, investigación cualitativa y cuantitativa. DISCUSIÓN; Es necesario profundizar en el concepto de sufrimiento con el fin de hallar una definición transcultural que contemple aspectos individuales y socio-culturales. No se han encontrado instrumentos que midan la de forma objetiva la intensidad del sufrimiento. La experiencia del sufrimiento es totalmente subjetiva.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.