Fatores de risco no desenvolvimento de um luto complicado em familiares cuidadores de doentes oncológicos

Abstract

Although complicated grief affect about six million caregivers of oncologic patients worldwide (Carr & Steel, 2013), this grief process in family caregivers of these patients has received little empirical attention contextualized in our reality and in a qualitative approach. Therefore, we aimed to understand what factors influenced the development of a complicated grief from the perspective of these informal caregivers. Through a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with four family caregivers of oncologic patients that experienced a complicated grief, and were used the principles of Grounded Theory for data analysis. The main conclusions shows that participants pointed as factors that contributed for complicated grief introversion, intensity of attachment to patient, the awareness of patient’s suffering, the difficulty of accepting death and the presence of personal and family’s pathologies competitors of oncologic disease or loss. The location and way of the death, and the conspiracy of silence with the patient were those that didn’t seem to have influence in the grief process. We believe that the knowledge of such factors brings contributions to understanding complicated grief processes in these caregivers and research community and practitioners’ action that, in this way, can promote an adjusted grief process in this population.

Date of Award	24 Jul 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Elisa Veiga (Supervisor)