Nursing work at night in palliative oncology care1

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: to understand the meaning baccalaureate nurses and nursing technicians attribute to night work in the context of clinical palliative oncology nursing care services, as well as how nursing works to attend to clients and caregivers' needs in this period. METHOD: in this exploratory and qualitative study, grounded theory was used. Seven nurses and four nursing technicians were interviewed, who composed two sample groups. Nine categories were produced and, in their comparative content analysis, a knowledge emphasis was evidenced with implications for nighttime nursing work. In this study, these aspects were discussed in two of the categories, which are: to describe care practice in order to understand nursing care management and to point out the difficulties in care practice and nursing care management. RESULTS: The results evidence the complexity in the nighttime care context, considering the clients' clinical conditions and clients and caregivers' psychological demands, mainly because of the threat of death. CONCLUSION: The team attempts to respond to these needs through communication, but reveals a lack of assistential services and an overload. Interdisciplinarity is a palliative care premise, favoring holistic care delivery, and cannot be neglected at, which requires attention and investment to develop better practices.