O humor e o luto nos enfermeiros que trabalham em cuidados paliativos

Abstract

Goal: To explore the link between humor and professional grief overload on nurses that work in palliative care. Context: Nurses who care of dying people in a context of palliative care are confronted in their clinical practice with a number of challenging situations. Death and progressive-debilitating processes associated with incurable diseases have an impact on nurses and are an important stressor. Empirical evidence on the link between sense of humor and the experience of professional grief is scarce, meaning its heuristic availability is still vast. Knowledge on how humor contributes to a more healthy existence can lead to a better support of this professional group. Material and methods: A correlational quantitative study was developed, applying a validated and adapted version to the Portuguese population of the Multidimensional Sense of Humor (Thorson & Powell, 1993a; José & Parreira, 2008) and the Professional Grief Overload (Marques da Gama, et al., 2011) scales. The data gathered underwent statistical analysis through use of specialized software and was subjected to interpretative analysis based on existing scientific evidence. Results: This study did not conclude an absolute correlation between professional grief overload and nurses’ humor, evaluated through the total scores obtained in the abovementioned scales. Still, a few important correlations between particular dimensions of both constructs were verified: professional grief overload is correlated with both coping humor (rs = 0.249, p<0.05) and personal attitude towards humor (rs = 0.323, p<0.01); coping humor and tormented confinement present a low but statiscally significant correlation(rs = 0.266, p<0.05). Also personal attitude towards humor is correlated with tormented confinement (rs = 0.290, p<0.05), nostalgic loss (0.333, p<0.01) and misunderstood sharing (rs = 0.272, p<0.05). Conclusions: The results confirmed the hypothesis that humor and professional grief are actually related. Positive attitudes towards humor and its use as a coping mechanism seems to alleviate the grief overload perceived by nurses who work in palliative care settings. Naturally, it is important that more investigation projects in this area are developed, identifying needs and looking into new solid ways of support to these professionals.

Date of Award	30 Apr 2015
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Helena Maria Guerreiro José (Supervisor) & Manuel Luís Capelas (Co-Supervisor)