Meanings of life and death: reflections of patients in palliative care
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1590/0103-6564e180037Keywords:
palliative care, spirituality, psychology, palliative care in the terminality of lifeAbstract
Palliative care seeks to alleviate the suffering of patients with chronic and life-threatening diseases in the physical, social, psychological and spiritual dimensions. In the spiritual dimension, it seeks to imbue transcendental aspects, such as life and death, with meaning. Knowing these senses is the objective of this study, which is a qualitative research of exploratory character, and uses semi-structured interviews for data collection and discourse analysis. Four patients were interviewed and three categories of meaning were identified: finitude coping resources; sufferings related to finitude; meanings attributed to life and death. We noticed the greater suffering was not the finitude itself, but what arises from it, such as functional loss, concern for the family and threat of values. The difficulty in talking about death is not necessarily in itself, but in identifying the meaning it has for the person and the underlying sufferings.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Psicologia USP
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Todo o conteúdo de Psicologia USP está licenciado sob uma Licença Creative Commons BY-NC, exceto onde identificado diferentemente.
A aprovação dos textos para publicação implica a cessão imediata e sem ônus dos direitos de publicação para a revista Psicologia USP, que terá a exclusividade de publicá-los primeiramente.
A revista incentiva autores a divulgarem os pdfs com a versão final de seus artigos em seus sites pessoais e institucionais, desde que estes sejam sem fins lucrativos e/ou comerciais, mencionando a publicação original em Psicologia USP.