Assistance Practices of Medical and Nursing Teams for Hospitalized People in Palliative Care

Abstract

Objective: to analyze the practices of Medical and Nursing teams for hospitalized people in Palliative Care. Method: a qualitative research study linked to the post-critical perspective, carried out between November 2020 and April 2021 in a teaching hospital from southern Brazil. The participants were three physicians, four nurses, three nursing technicians and four hospitalized adults monitored by a Palliative Care consulting team. Vignette and data extraction from medical records were used as data production techniques. The Atlas.ti program, cloud version for students, was used for data management. The data were submitted to content thematic content analysis and interpreted with theoretical notions of life technologies, therapeutic economics and biopolitics. Results: the practices were directed towards physical distress. The technologies, represented by devices and medications, were the main ways of approaching this. Even if controversial, some practices tend to be used with a view to prolonging the days of life, if that should be the family's wish. The family tends to be used as a link between the hospital and the home; however, it needs to be cared for. Conclusion: the practices of Medical and Nursing teams partially converge with Palliative Care recommendations and principles. Even under the monitoring of a specialized team, the behaviors prescribed by care teams are supported, above all, on moral values and empirical judgment. Such stance has repercussions on the resistance to accepting death as an existential event and inherent to life, keeping it still medicalized, even from different perspectives, such as Palliative Care.