Lived dialogue between nurse and mothers of children with cancer

Abstract

The progressive increase of cases of children with cancer in Brazil has stimulated many health professionals to develop researches which contribute to a better quality of health assistance to this clientele and their families. This study consists of a qualitative design of field research which aim to understand the lived dialogue between nurse and mothers of children with cancer grounded in Paterson and Zderad’s Humanistic Nursing Theory. The study participants were six mothers who accompanied their children with cancer in the hospital pediatric unit. The lived dialogue was developed based on the phases of Phenomenological Nursing (Preparing the nurse knows; Nurse knowing of the other intuitively). In this phase, the data emerged from the meeting between nurse and mothers using the technique of interview and were recorded in the field diary. The other phases served as a basis to data analysis, which constituted in the moments of the relation I-This: Nurse knows the other scientifically; Nurse complementarily synthesizing known others and Sucession within the nurse from the multiple to the paradoxical one. From data analysis emerged the following categories: Mothers front of the diagnosis discovering; Mothers front of the child treatment; Mothers front of the adaptation to the hospital environment; Mothers information needing; Mothers with problems in the family context; Mothers with physical and emotional health affected; Mothers searching ways of coping; Mothers living happiness moments. The dialogue intuitive and scientifically lived made it possible for the mothers to receive care which would promote their well-being and more-well--being in that lived situation with their children. It was, then, made possible the reflection, conceptualization and description of a phenomenon which revealed the nurse being-with and doing-with in a humanistic relation with mothers of children with cancer.