I and my hospitalized child: mothers’ conceptions

Abstract

The study has a phenomenological nature, which, due to its nature, does not consider a systematic way of learning, understanding the truth through its character of temporariness, mutability and relativity. It brings into focus the phenomenon, that is, the subject-object relationship, aiming at interpreting the hospitalized child’s mother, with the intention of apprehending explicit and implicit meanings in their reports. The investigation was conducted at the pediatric unity of a municipal public hospital in Fortaleza/Ce, where the mother’s or escort’s right to stay with the child during the hospitalization period is assured. The period of study was three months and the data collection occurred between August and September of 2003. The subjects investigated were eight mothers of hospitalized children, and the selection process was random, prevailling the criteria of theoretical saturation, through the technique of videotaped interviews. In order to interpret the information obtained, I used Hermeneutics, because it makes possible to understand the meaning of the phenomenon. The descriptions show that the mothers experience different emotions when they are cast in the unknown world that the hospital represents and that they need the care provided by the health team to face the suffering produced by this event.