Abstract

GALVEZ GONZALEZ, María et al. Family accompanying: a tool to dignify the death process in intensive care unit. Index Enferm [online]. 2011, vol.20, n.4, pp.233-237. ISSN 1699-5988.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/S1132-12962011000300005.

Nurses have a detrimental roll when reorientation the relationships with relatives of intensive care patient's, and reorganizing strategies for the patient visiting hours, especially for moribund patients. Taking into account these aspects and the high incidence of death in intensive care units, it would be interesting to study the phenomenon of accompaniment of dying patients admitted in these units, from the nursing staffs' perspective. A case study has been carried out with bibliographic method. An in-depth interview as the technique used for compiling information. The interview was recorded and literally transcribed. The information obtained was verified by the informant and analyzed according to the steps proposed by Taylor-Bogdan. The principal category that emerges from the analysis of the speech is the conceptualization of the weaknesses and threats surrounding the accompaniment of moribund patients, which the informant perceives as barriers and relates it with her own beliefs and values, with family roll in today's society and those that the nursing professionals have regarding the area of medical information. The principal barrier documented is the lack of connection between the information that the relative receive and the information that the nursing staff have regarding medical information. The results of this study clarify the difficulty that nurses in critical care units encounter when attending relatives of patients who are in the process of death. We should opt for models which are centred on relations-patient-relative, although this may be perceived as a treat for today's biomedical culture.

Keywords : Relatives; Death; Intensive care; Qualitative investigation; Nursing.