In this literature review article of theoretical-conceptual nature, the relationship between representations and practices of nursing professionals regarding patient care in the process of death is analyzed. From a sociological and anthropological point of view and based on the results of published research in the field of collective health and social sciences, the relationship between nursing practices and the representations generated stresses the importance to grasp its logic in the social context it gives rise. Starting to recognize that the process of death committed biological, psychological, ideological, cultural, political and institutional particular issues, the importance of recovering the components of knowledge that have been invisible, to identify the impact argues that on professional practices Nursing generates the attention of the death process of patients assisted in the areas of emergency, as this process has been seen in a positivist way, being analyzed only as a biological fact and not as a social event has cultural significance and influences in the subjectivity of everyone around.
death; nursing; practices; social representations