Why phenomenology and/in Nursing?

The Revista Gaúcha de Enfermagem - RGE - is committed to the dissemination and consequent visibility of scientific production in Nursing and Healthcare and has adopted different initiatives to contribute with knowledge translation in different contexts of healthcare, education, and research practices. This condition is mediated by one of the core pillars of the editorial process, the fact of “being with” those who are concerned with the authentic being-knowing-and-doing-nursing, considering the nature of the subject as a Science and Art of Caring.

The Brazilian Association of Nursing (ABEn), created in 1926, has as its goal to “promote the political, social and scientific development” in Nursing. ABEn’s main pillars are defending Nursing as a social practice and guiding education and scientific research in Nursing, which has mainly developed in Brazil since the 1970’s, with the creation of Postgraduate Programs.

Therefore, in Brazil the source of academic and scientific production in the field of Nursing is connected to those programs, among which are the Ph.D. courses in the University of São Paulo - USP (1981), Federal University of São Paulo - UNIFESP (1986), and Federal University Federal of Rio de Janeiro - UFRJ (1989).

The so-called Modern Nursing, which started with Florence Nightingale, had as its main support the scientific method of Claude Bernard, who was the founder of experimental medicine in 1867. This paradigm, proposed by Boaventura de Souza Santos as dominant, has been present in Nursing and continues to be until today due to its relevance.

However, supported by the academic knowledge production from Postgraduate Programs and inspired in the Social Sciences model, the field of Nursing included theorical, philosophical and methodological approaches that come from the emergent paradigm. That required discussing knowledge production in qualitative approaches according to the model of Social Sciences and Humanistic Sciences.1

That was when the Brazilian National Meetings of Nursing Research (SENPEs) appeared, with a highlight to the 3rd edition organized in 1984, by ABEn in Santa Catarina and by the Nursing Department of the Federal University of Santa Catarina. This meeting had among its objectives to “study the alternatives of methodological interpretation in the development of scientific knowledge and to analyze its use in Nursing scientific production”. To deepen this debate, Dr. Creusa Capalbo discussed in two different moments the theme “Anthropology and phenomenology”. In the first one, she highlighted “the crisis of the traditional concept of human nature” and in the second, “the methodological alternatives of research”.

Within that framework, phenomenology seems to be an emergent trend for the theoretical foundation of the Brazilian Nursing scientific knowledge production, based on a study that had as its main source the catalogues with the Ph.D. thesis published by CEPEn/ABEn from 1979 to 1984.2

By examining the structure of consciousness, phenomenology brings the ontological human theme of being as the center of its quest and thus overcomes the methodological insufficiency of the application of Natural Sciences to the knowledge of man in his existential wholeness.3

That view of Nursing brings the perspective of caring for human beings who are immerse in their territory in the world, and acknowledging the needs of life in constant movement according to social webs, thus strengthening nurses’ care, education, research and management professional practice.

This condition culminates with the goal of developing a forum for cross-institutional debate called International Colloquium of Phenomenology and Nursing, which rely on researchers and stakeholders to debate this subject, considering Dr. Creusa Cabalbo’s opinion that the task of applying phenomenology to Nursing is due to the nurses themselves.4

The Colloquium’s mission is to regularly assemble members of research groups, and educational and healthcare institutions, in order to maintain the dialogue about the theoretical frameworks for the appropriation and development of the phenomenological approach to research, anchored in the academic and scientific production in Nursing and Healthcare. Therefore, the goals are to discuss the interfaces with the healthcare field, to analyze trends and possibilities to strengthen and spread the comprehensive episteme of phenomenology for professional practice fields.

The first Colloquium of Phenomenology occurred in May 2014; the second, in September 2016; and both were hosted by the Nursing School Anna Nery at UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro. The third Colloquium was organized by the Research Group Care with People, Families and Society (PEFAS) in June 2018 at the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM). The Colloquia were organized in a partnership among the Research Groups of the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), the State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ) and the Federal University of the State of Rio de Janeiro (UNIRIO), the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) and the support of their respective Nursing Postgraduate Programs.

The fourth edition of the International Colloquium of Phenomenology and Nursing became a strong partnership for the shared promotion of professors in Nursing Postgraduate Programs and in research groups from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), UFSM, UFF, UFRJ, Federal University of Juiz de Fora (FJF) and the Federal University of Pelotas (UFPel). This last edition, held in November 2021, had to be reinvented due to Sars-COVID-19 pandemic, a situation that made researchers find new meanings in different situations in their living environment and their work, where face to face relationships are essential for social relations, getting closer to Heideggerian historicity and temporality.

The dimensions of care in an existential and sociological perspective and the interfaces with the field of healthcare, as well as the topic of the phenomenological method and its operationality in Nursing and Healthcare clinical practice, are present in the articles that compose this phenomenological special session in this edition of RGE.5

The phenomenological theoretical corpus resulting from those studies is part of the phenomenality of unquestionable evidence in the scientific productions here presented. In other words: it expresses the experiences of the subjects of care, illustrated by philosophical theoretical references such as Heidegger, Merlau-Ponty, Hurssel, Alfred Schutz, and Van Kaan.

Phenomenology in Nursing allows to penetrate the real and potential needs, making it possible to identify qualitative evidence in clinical practice considering the singularities of the subjects of care.

REFERENCES

• 1. Santos B. Um discurso sobre as ciências. 7. ed. São Paulo: Cortez; 2015.
• 2. Rocha SMM, Silva GB. Linhas filosóficas e ideológicas na pesquisa em enfermagem no Brasil. Rev Bras Enferm. 1987;40(4):214-21. doi: https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-71671987000400007
  » https://doi.org/10.1590/S0034-71671987000400007
• 3. Capalbo C. Considerações sobre o método fenomenológico e a Enfermagem. Rev Enferm UERJ. 1994;2(2):192-7.
• 4. Capalbo C. Abordando a enfermagem a partir da fenomenologia. Rev Enferm UERJ. 1994;2(1):70-6.
• 5. Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Escola de Enfermagem. Anais do 4º Colóquio Internacional Fenomenologia e Enfermagem; 10-12 de novembro de 2021. Porto Alegre, RS: UFRGS; 2021 [citado 2022 mar 10]. Disponível em: Disponível em: https://www.ufrgs.br/ppgenf/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Anais-coloquio-versa%CC%83o-final.pdf
  » https://www.ufrgs.br/ppgenf/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Anais-coloquio-versa%CC%83o-final.pdf

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  28 Oct 2022
• Date of issue
  2022