Cuidado em saúde mental: a escuta de pacientes egressos de um Hospital Dia.

This is a qualitative study aiming at understanding how patients discharged from a Mental Health Day Hospital view the service, at learning whether such service contributed to changes in their lives and at whether those individuals continued treatment. Semi-structured interviews and documental research were used for nine patients who had completed treatment at the service in 2008. Thematic analysis was adopted for organization of the data obtained, which were analyzed according to the Psychosocial Rehabilitation framework. It emphasizes the importance of looking for the various subjective aspects of human existence, requiring from services and professionals the establishment of a caring relationship that enables the reconstruction of trajectories interrupted by the onset of the disease, through actions that consider the integrality and intersectionality.

Taking care as a relationship: a phenomenological view

The purpose of this study was to understand and analyse the meanings given to caring of patients on the isolation ward by nursing students, focusing particularly on the aspects of communication and interpersonal relationships. The data were collected from individual interviews with 18 nursing students who were performing nursing practice on the isolation ward. The results, analysed and interpreted according to existential phenomenology, describe the structure of the phenomenon 'taking care on the isolation ward' from a relational perspective. The students described their difficulties and anxieties, as well as their willingness to take care of isolated patients, resulting in the overcoming of obstacles and in contacting and becoming involved when taking care of these patients.

Caring for organ donors: The intensive care unit nurses' view

The nursing care for patients who are pronounced brain-dead but kept alive to serve as organ donors demands technical-scientific skills and the ability to handle situations that are often in conflict with the traditional concepts of nursing care. Based on the phenomenological approach in this article, essential themes of the lived experience of caring for these patients, including the technical and specific nursing care, the relationship with organ donors and their families, and the nurses' perception of themselves in this professional situation are described. The results point to the contradictions and ambiguities of this type of nursing, especially in regards to the affective and philosophical aspects.