Necessidades da pessoa em situação crítica e sua família

: cuidar confortador

Abstract

This report describes in a critical and pondered manner, the specialised tasks and responsibilities undertaken and acquired throughout the Master’s Degree in the specialised area of Medical-Surgical Nursing, at the Institute of Health Sciences of the Portuguese Catholic University. It highlights the specialised Medical-Surgical responsibilities when providing healthcare to critical patients and their families, resulting from the ongoing process of providing nursing care in internships at the Emergency and Pre-hospital departments, based on the knowledge acquired in the Intensive Care module, and the skills acquired through professional experience. It reflects on the main topic of Personal Needs of People and Their Families in a Critical Situation: Comforting Care and the dynamic process carried out in the technical, human, ethical and scientific facets when providing specialised healthcare and the scientific evidence produced, through the undertaking of a systematic review of the literature that underpins the nursing practice. A critical, acute and unforeseen illness leads to abrupt changes in the lives of the patient and his/her family, and the need to face up to suffering, which gives rise to a varied set of needs. The nurses, as they remain in close contact with the patient and the family, are the professionals who have the most opportunity to understand and decide how to undertake their specialised nursing tasks, to provide Comforting Care. The journey developed and elaborated on in this report intends to bring the specialised nursing needs of critical patients and their families to the fore and out in the open, in the Emergency and Pre-hospital context. The practice of specialised care is examined through the scientific evidence, the critical and reflective thinking and the decision making. The appropriation of the guiding premises advocated by the nursing theories of Meleis and Kolcaba, based on the Transformation paradigm, allow the development of skills centred on the real needs of critical patients and their families, seeking to ground the nursing care on the transitional process, the importance of comforting and intentional acts, to enable excellence in exercising the profession, respecting ethical and deontological principles and striving for continuous improvement in the nursing care provided.

Date of Award	19 Apr 2018
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Patrícia Pontífice-Sousa (Supervisor)