Dados do Trabalho

Título

WOULD THE LIVING-WILL AN INTERESTING OPTION AS A SELF-DETERMINATION FOR DOCTORS? A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON REPORTS OF BRAZILIAN ONCOLOGISTS FROM A CLINICAL SERVICE ABOUT THEIR OWN WILL

Introdução

What do oncologists think about their own Living Will (LW)? What are the symbolic aspects involved? LW is a personal and formal register of end-of-life care preferences. Health professionals who deal with patients in clinical severity are constantly confronted with the inexorable human condition of terminality. Their technical-scientific knowledge does not exempt them from typical human anguishes in thinking, fantasizing or even planning how their own death could occur in case of imminent death.

Objetivo

To explore and interpret symbolic representations reported freely by oncologists of a hospital clinical service about their possible ideas in elaborating their own LW.

Método

Turato's Clinical-Qualitative design, using SDIOQD Semidirected Interviews with Open-ended Questions In-Depth conducted remotely in the context of the pandemic and full transcribed. The interviewer is psychologist and first author of this research. In an intentional sample, 08 physicians were included and closed by the Glaser & Strauss' criteria of Information Saturation. Data processing by Faria-Schützer and collaborators' Seven Steps of the CQCA Clinical-Qualitative Content Analysis. Theoretical framework used was the Health Psychology, especially the symbolic while a structuring entity of subjectivity.

Resultado

Preliminary discussions unveiled rich cores of meanings in the interview corpus after free-floating readings. For this presentation, the authors have chosen three categories: 1) The apparent decision in postponing the elaboration of LW in order to avoid the eerie sensation of calling death; 2) The way from an ego mechanism of rationalization to one of intellectualization, this one while a defense psychologically more elaborate, considering the intellectual condition of health professionals; 3) The avoidance of thinking on LW due to an intimate fear of autonomy loss, seeing yourself so a doctor-as-patient.

Conclusão

(a) As it is common in people in general, oncologists also resort unconsciously to the so-called magic-archaic thought when imagining that the fact of elaborating an LW could anticipate the day of their death; b) Feeling like healthy peoples, non-conscious fantasies of omnipotence against death do not allow programming for writing an LW; c) To trust that their decisions, placed in a LW, serves for future decision-making by another professional, this sharpens a anticipatory and disturbing feeling of the autonomy loss.

Palavras-chave

Living Will. Clinical Oncologists. Clinical-Qualitative Research

Área

Oncologia - Psico-oncologia