palliative care; grief; pandemic; COVID-19, psychology
The pandemic caused by the new coronavirus unraveled a challenging scenario for palliative caring. COVID-19 is caused by the sars-cov-2 virus, recognized in 2019, responsible for more than 6 million deaths up to the first semester of 2022. In addition to the demanded care by the family members during the clinic condition of the infection, it’s important to consider the need of assistance in the grieving period of the patients whose sickening is fatal. In response to the sanitary emergency, a program of group intervention (Vínculos e Reflexões) was developed in the University of Brasília to offer support to the COVID-19 grieving family members, composed of six online meetings. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five professionals who took part in the trainment for leading and diffusion of the aforementioned group. The perception of the impact caused by the group intervention and by the trainment and access to permanent education over the professional acting of the workers were evaluated. The interviews were submitted to content analysis, where the following categories were identified: professional performance during the pandemic, perception on the impact of the trainment, perception on the impact of the group and perception on palliative caring. Each themed content category was divided in related subcategories. Two integrative revisions of the literature were done, combining the following descriptors: palliative care; pandemic or COVID19 or COVID-19; grief; where 219 articles were found, with the analysis of 24 of those studies being included. Additionally, a second review was done combining the descriptors: palliative care; pandemic or COVID19 or COVID-19; hospital assistance; where 174 articles were found, with the analysis of 10 of those studies being included. The results of this study point to the impact that interventions can have on the grieving process during the pandemic and the necessity of considering palliative caring in the line of care.