Olhar materno sobre a dor do filho recém–nascido

Abstract

Objective: Understand mother’s look about the pain of the child hospitalized in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Method: this is a descriptive study, with a qualitative approach, conducted with 28 mothers of newborns (NBs) in a public hospital in Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil, in June and July 2011. For obtaining and analyzing data, we adopted the steps of Paterson and Zderad’s Phenomenological Nursing. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the hospital concerned, under the Protocol 020602/11. Results: data were organized and analyzed into 3 categories based under the light of humanistic assumptions: 1) Mother’s understanding of the presence of pain in the newborn infant admitted to the NICU; 2) Signs of pain in the newborn infant perceived by the mother: call for help; and 3) Mother’s perception of the painful procedures experienced by the newborn infant. Conclusion: we found out that mothers perceived pain in the NB due to her/his clinical condition, associated to the implications experienced during hospitalization, and this pain is characterized by behavioral and mood changes.