Communication between families and the health team in a pediatric intensive care unit: impact on the hospitalization process

Abstract

This article analyzes the process of communication between the health team and the families, and its impact on those involved in the hospitalization process, from the perspective of the Pragmatics of Human Communication theory. The purpose of the study is to promote strategies for coping with hospitalization by suggesting elements that can provide tools to the health teams as well as to the families in order to better understand the diagnosis and the process of hospitalization. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 family members of 8 children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit in a public hospital in the state of Santa Catarina in southern Brazil. The analysis of the data, grouped into thematic units, demonstrated the presence of a multidetermined communication network with regard to the process of communication between the health team and the family, which decisively affected the interaction process in the context of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Consequently, this had a direct repercussion on the quality of the work of the professionals and on the greater or lesser emotional suffering by the family.

Interpersonal communication; Professional-family relations; Pediatric intensive care units