Death and dying according to nursing students' representations

Abstract

This is a qualitative study whose objective was to know the representations of the Federal University of São Paulo's undergraduate Nursing students on the questions that involve death and dying. The subjects were 40 students, males and females, in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th year of the undergraduate course in Nursing. As a methodology were used the assumptions of the Social Representations, using the technique of an interview with two nonstructured guiding questions. The results of this study were organized and placed on a maximum tree having as the represen tation's central nucleus the event death and as the most important peripheral representations concepts, fear of death and relationship pupil-patient.