CHILDREN´S VIEW ON DEATH

Abstract

Type of Study: Cases Report. Study’s Objectives: To review some aspects in literature about the children’s view on death, integrating them with clinical experiences. Death is something unknown that disturb us and lead us to a search for the comprehension of the beginning and of the end. Children experience situations that are related to the topic of death and they can express their experiences in this reality, cognitively and affectionately. There are several researches into the children’s comprehension of death, relating this comprehension with the children’s level of global development. It is possible to identify three components in the children’s death concept: irreversibility (impossibility to return to the previous state, body’s death); no functionality (understanding that all functions that define life cease with death) and universality (everything that is alive, dies). Methodology: In order to illustrate these aspects two clinical cases will be presented: the first one is related to the experience of a five-year-old child with bone cancer, whose disease grew worse with the possibility of imminent death and the second one is directed to a three-yearold child’s mourning experience. Results and Conclusion: The psychological assistance proved to be indispensable when children experience situations that are related with death. Problem’s importance and Comments: The studies of the children’s comprehension of death and of the dying process help the health professionals and also the families to deal with those children who go through such experience, making it possible for them to share their own feelings and at the same time to feel understood and protected.