As percepções dos psicólogos frente aos cuidados paliativos em pacientes oncológicos.

Abstract

Palliative Care is spreading out every day around the world. In the last years, this practice of care increased significantly by demonstrating that the act to take care of a patient could be present in all phases of its illness and not only when there are chances of cure. At the head of palliative care, there is a multi-professional team that is been trained and seek through their job provide a place where the pain could be relieved and the life quality prioritized in order to provide a peaceful death. The psychologist job in a palliative care team is related to develop a work integrating patient, relatives and the team with the objective to support them during the treatment until the moment of its death. This study had the objective to identify and map the way psychologists deal daily with end-of-life and which impacts and changes could happen in their professional careers and personal life. By using a semi-structured interview within a qualitative perspective, five psychologists that work with Palliative Care were interviewed. The data was analyzed according to the Content Analysis model of Bardin and then categorized. The results point out that the experience of work with palliative care patients was positive and may bring a possibility of reformulation of their lives due to the fact it provides awareness regarding to the end-of-life. The work performed with patients in the end of their lives was perceived by the professionals as a trigger of changes, reflected mainly in their personal life.