APPLICATION OF TRANSPERSOAL CARING THEORY IN PARAPLEGIC INPATIENT: REPORT OF AN EXPERIENCE

Abstract

A report of the experience on the process of taking care and of teaching to take care of paraplegic people using the transpersonal caring theory of Jean Watson’s. It is a descriptive study, that involved six patients, two professors of Nursing Department of the Federal University of Ceará (UFC) and forty students registered in the discipline Process of Taking Care II. The collection of the data was carried out between April, 2000 and April, 2001, by means of semi-structured interviews that involved subjects related with inability and caring. For the application of the theory, nursing process stages were followed acording to Alfaro Le Fevre (2000). The patients, professors and students, were considered partners in the relationship of taking care and teaching/learning to take care. The patients express that this new caring strategy generates satisfaction motivating the accomplishment of innovative practices, such as: alternative cares of the type play and hugs, visual contact and quiet attitude. The students were given bill of the importance of the planning of taking care of the paraplegic persons, for which, they offer more humanistic caring and of better quality. It was a moment of discovery, with the patients, and we contemplated on their styles of living, to be and to act and, together, we tried to understand the meaning of taking care of the paraplegic through our dialogues. Thus, to apply the model of transpersonal caring in paraplegic inpatients, it was a way to extend the theory to the practice which represented a growth opportunity and autonomy of nursing in the hospital environment.