[Care in the hospital setting from the perspective of nursing assistants]

This is an exploratory study, developed with 14 nursing assistants that work in hospitals in a city of Rio Grande do Sul. It aimed to understand the nursing assistants' experiences of care in the hospital environment. The data were collected from April to September 2002. In them, five categories were identified: standardization of care; emphasis in the technique and in the procedure; suffering and tension at work; value of the caregiver; humanization of the care through ethics. They revealed the dimensions of caring from the perspective of the nursing assistants, showing the environment and the relationships that exist in some health institutions. It enabled to unveil the meanings of the caring experience, and pointed to the need of thinking about its multidimensionality.