The nurse’s perspective on humanized care in a post-anesthesic care unit.

Abstract

Whenever patients and their families are faced to the possibility of undergoing surgery they experience feelings of hope for a positive result, as well as anxiety and distrust caused by fear of the unknown. When the patient is transferred to the Recovery Room, this time represents for the family a waiting time for information to brighten up its distress and anxiety. The objective of this study is getting to know the perceptions of nurses in a Recovery Room in relation to the information supplied to the family as a form of humanized care. This study was carried out with three nurses in a teaching hospital in the city of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Data collection was conducted through semi-structured interview, using the thematic content analysis, which resulted in three categories of nurses’ perception: facing the families’ worries and the need of providing the necessary information, their own construction as a caregiver, and their own ways of looking for humanized care. This, in the perception of the nurses, strengthens the professional identity and care values.