Spirituality and living with cancer in the process of dying

Resumo

Objective: identifying if the spirituality helps the oncologic patients in their terminality process. Methodology: this is about an exploratory and descriptive study, from qualitative approach, performed five patient that were in palliative treatment for the program of oncologic internment home at a small ville in south from Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil. Data were collected from April to May 2008, by interviews recorded using a semistructured script. This study was approved by the Committee of Ethics in Research of the Hospital Santa Casa (009/2008). Results: data analysis revealed the knowledge of a terminal disease, with the perception of this and the terrain and divine senses for the cancer diagnosis; spirituality in the process of dying, in their internal and external aspects. Conclusion: it was considered that the study just made possible understand that the spirituality helps these people in their terminality process; also to propitiate the professional nurse a glance humanized for the spirituality of the oncologic patient. Descriptors: neoplasia; spirituality; terminal patient; nursing.