Nursing Education in Palliative Care at the State of Rio Grande do Norte
Palliative care. Professional formation. Nursing. University Education Institutions. Teaching.
The increase of the life expectancy and the Brazilian population’s aging occurs at a health context of which is worth to highlight the conditions and degenerative chronic diseases, with demands for palliative care, that are essential for the quality of life of the citizens and their relatives that are facing life threating diseases. One understands that the nurse, as the one who assists the patient in an integral way at the physical, psychological, social and spiritual dimensions, and act as the link between patient, family and health team, and with a higher effectiveness to accomplish the care practice. However, both, nurses and nursing students demonstrate that they are not fit to deal with patients undergoing palliative care. This study’s purpose is to analyze the teaching of the palliative care inside the nursing formation at university education institutions. It is an exploratory-descriptive study, with a qualitative approach. The place of study will be public and private institutions of university education, from Rio Grande do Norte, recognized by the Minister of Education and Culture. Coordinators from the nursing graduation classes that accepted to take part, and a few provided pedagogical projects integrated the study. The data gathering procedures included at the first stage, a semi structured interview with a script about the teaching of palliative care at the nursing education, in addition to the sociodemographic characterization and the professional education of the participants and institutions; the second stage was the reading and descriptive analysis of the pedagogical projects from the investigated institutions. The technique of theme content analysis of Bardin with Minayo’s adaptation was used for the interview results, and the descriptive analysis was used for the other results. As theoretical reference, the study used Morin’s complexity theory, educational politics and pedagogical projects. The study obtained a favorable report from the Committee of ethics in Research from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte with CAAE nº 91830118.7.0000.5537. Among the obtained results, one observes the evidence of fragilities related to the inclusion and approach of the palliative care at the nursing education, on both, public and private institutions, as well as the absence of this content as a mandatory discipline or even as an optional one. From this point of view, the findings demonstrated a considerable urgency to insert the palliative care at the current training curriculum of the nursing professional. And, presents strong evidence highlighting that the nursing, specially in this study’s context, shows gaps at the teaching of palliative care, in addition to corroborate with the literature, regarding the difficulties showed by both, nursing professionals and academics when assisting patients with palliative care. Therefore, the people in charge of the training programs must make a reflection to contemplate both, the populations’ health profile, currently centered in the conditions and degenerative chronic diseases, and the need of a better professional formation, that reveals itself as a challenge for the nurse, because it is about a new demand of care.