[Comfort and communication measures in nursing caring actions for critically ill patients]

Descriptive, quantitative study carried out at a University Hospital in Curitiba-PR, Brazil. The objective was to analyze the caring actions performed at a semi-intensive care unit, from the perspective of the caring humanization, and also to evaluate the presence of comfort and communication measures in performing these actions. The data collection occurred under a systematic non-participant observation. The caring actions were grouped, according to its frequency, and presented in graphs. The comfort measures were present at 45% of the caring actions performed, and communication establishment was present at 40% of these actions. Even today, the comfort and communication measures, as reflected in the process of caring humanization, remain as an ideal speech. However, they are too far from reality of the health care system's users and workers.