Abstract

BARBOSA, Roberta Maria de Melo; FERREIRA, Juliana Laís Pinto; MELO, Mônica Cristina Batista de  and  COSTA, Juliana Monteiro. Spirituality as a coping strategy for families of adult patients in palliative care. Rev. SBPH [online]. 2017, vol.20, n.1, pp. 165-182. ISSN 1516-0858.

Spirituality can be an important support for families coping with mourning in face of the process of sickness of patients in Palliative Care, relieving suffering and promoting life quality. The research aimed to comprehend how families of adults in Palliative Care express their experiences of spiritual support. It is a qualitative study, conducted in Instituto de Medicina Integral Prof. Fernando Figueira (IMIP), for which data were collected between january and march of 2016. Family members were interviewed and Minayo’s Thematic Content Analysis were utilized to analyse the results. Ten relatives participated, aged between 26 and 62, all christians. It was identified that spirituality acts as a way of facing illness. Moreover, spirituality can contribute so that patients and members of the family are able to find meaning for the experiences and suffering caused by terminal illness. However, spirituality still stands as a challenge to health professionals.

Keywords : palliative care; spiritual support; spirituality; family.

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