Nursing team and palliative care: dimensions of care in home care settings

Abstract

This Qualitative Research aimed to analyze the Nursing Team's perceptions regarding the needs for managing patients in Palliative Care within home care settings. Guided by Hermeneutic-Dialectics, the study used semi-structured interviews with 26 professionals from a private health service. The findings reveal that care needs emerge from a fundamental triad composed of three dimensions: subjective; technical-care and ethical-relational; and collective and organizational. Analysis demonstrates that an imbalance in this triad's functioning compromises worker health, professional autonomy, and service sustainability. It was evidenced that ethical suffering and emotional exhaustion are aggravated by formative gaps and reactive institutional structures. In conclusion, the qualification of palliative nursing depends on the articulation between subject, team, and system, requiring pedagogical and management models that support the technical and relational complexity of providing care during end-of-life at home.