Comic books: technology in health for the humanization of care delivery to hospitalized children

Abstract

Background: The use of a comic book (CB) on a painful and stressful procedure in pediatrics may contribute to a more humanistic practice, leading to a better understand-ing of children’s subjective needs and improved care quality. Objective: To describe the experience of the elaboration and use of a comic book (CB) about the instructional ther-apeutic toy (ITT) on venipuncture, following the assump-tions of the humanistic nursing theory. Methodology: Experience report with a qualitative, educa-tional, and humanistic approach on the elaboration of the CB on venipuncture based on Paterson and Zderad’s humanistic theory at a pediatric unit in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. Results: Self-explanatory, instructive, disseminating, hu-manizing, and original texts and illustrations were elabo-rated based on typographic drawings of the stages of the venipuncture procedure, as ITT, and using the vocabulary of surveyed nursing professionals. Conclusion: The use of CB as a health technology is be-lieved to improve nursing care and practice, as well as for raising professionals’ awareness to the adoption of a hu-manized practice. A limitation of this study was the diffi-culty in generalizing results.