[The nursing work process: the gap between planning and care delivery]

This article aims at characterizing nurse's and nursing assistant's work process, as well as at analyzing contradictions present in nursing work. Studies on the nursing and health work process, and the communicative action theory were used as its theoretical framework. Based on qualitative research methodology, the empirical material was collected by means of semi-structured interviews with nurses, nursing assistants and physicians on the same work team in a school hospital. Analysis was conducted through the impregnation technique and the identification of thematic units, which were interpreted on basis of analytical categories from the theoretical framework. Results showed contradictions such as the separation between planning and care delivery and the absence of appropriation of nursing knowledge by the agents who are in charge of delivering care.