The present qualitative and descriptive-exploratory study aims to focus on the meaning of work for 20 persons with stomas. Its objectives are: to identify the working situation of the people with stomas; and to analyze the work's meanings in their lives. It used semi-structured interviews for data collection in a Rehabilitation Institute in Rio de Janeiro and Thematic Content Analysis for data analysis. The results evidenced that the subjects present dialectical feelings in relation to the work, considering that work activity is a source of life, ensures material subsistence and signifies social participation. However, they also consider the work as a source of suffering, as they link it to a feeling of exclusion and to social segregation. It is concluded that work, in spite of raising negative feelings, is felt by the majority as something positive and that, because of this, nurses and other professionals from the area of healthcare and similar areas must encourage and viabilize the reinsertion of the person with a stoma into the world of work.
Occupational health; Surgical stomas; Disabled persons; Rehabilitation; Social security