Daily care of adolescents with special health care needs

Abstract

Objective: To understand the daily care of adolescents with special health care needs. Method: Qualitative study, based on the critical and liberating pedagogy of Paulo Freire and conducted in the pediatric outpatient clinic of a teaching hospital, in the second semester of 2016. The study was based on analysis of medical records, semi-structured interviews and construction of genograms and ecomaps of 35 adolescents with some kind of health demand. After the double transcription, the interviews were submitted to Pecheux discourse analysis. Results: The daily care of these adolescents occurs through personal hygiene, physical appearance, medication use, nutrition and modified habits. The discourse of the adolescents presented different levels of emancipation: sometimes care was developed by adaptation and alienation, revealed by habits and by the need to develop the care through a technical reproduction, which contributes to oppression; and at other times it is developed with the possibility of emancipation, based on reflection on their reality and on the action of positioning themselves. Conclusion: The daily care of these adolescents is full of possibilities and abilities at different levels of emancipation. The absence of dialogue, exchange of knowledge and reflection can contribute to the process of oppression. Nursing professionals need to enable the exchange of knowledge and reflection, so that the adolescent can transitions from a naive to critical conscience.