Bioethical references in the interface of palliative care

looking at the patient’s family in times of the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, given the sharp advance of the coronavirus in Brazil and in the world, countless human losses, patients in extreme vulnerability, intubated and isolated, intense working hours of the health teams, how does the patient’s family was welcomed and cared for? Bioethics, as an ethics of respect for life and dignity, supports comprehensive care for the family, in view of the difficulty of multidisciplinary assistance in inserting family members into the care process and receiving support to deal with pain, loss, suffering and death. The present study aims to identify ethical references that are presented in Bioethics models, in order to compose a basis of precepts that assist in the care for and support of the family in the pandemic and post-pandemic of COVID-19, to identify how these bioethical references are being used in palliative care to the patient’s family, in the context of the pandemic. Through the method of bibliographic review and qualitative investigation, the impacts of Cartesian thinking in the clinical area and the necessary recovery of humanization in health care were identified. From Potter’s Bioethics to the current approach of Hossne’s Theory of References, there are bioethical predicates that contribute to the expansion of family assistance and care. The Axiological Hospitality Scale and its psychometric properties for measuring ethical values related to the welcoming of patients and their families are highlighted, and with the help of technologies as new forms of communication in the pandemic. The article concludes that the bioethical references identified give relevance to humanized care and the preservation of the dignity of the patient and the family. Bioethical references in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic aim at possibilities of re-signifying experiences and meanings in the working through of loss, mourning and in the prevention of future diseases, given the assumptions of responsibility and commitment of the health team with the family’s life when facing the death of a family member.