Death in the Hospital: The Witnessing of the Patient with Cancer

The aim of the study was to know the witnessing of death from the perspective of the cancer patient in the hospital environment.

This is a qualitative and descriptive study, which was carried out in a cancer hospital in southern Brazil, with 27 cancer patients, through semi-structured interview, after the institutional research ethics committee approval. For categorisation and data analysis, Iramuteq software and Creswell content analysis were used.

Six classes emerged from the Iramuteq software and four categories were formed: (1) The reflection of the other itself; (2) feelings and emotions aroused; (3) the witnessing of a peaceful death and (4) death as a habitual event.

Patients felt sad and distressed, and some perceived death as something natural, often necessary for the relief of suffering. They put themselves in the place of the dying patient and their family members, imagining their loved ones and the suffering they would experience. Participants considered peaceful deaths to be good, unlike those in which patients had some kind of discomfort, described as horrible, distressing, sad and bad.