Nursing students' experience at the first contact with the people bodies sick: a qualitative research

Abstract

The nursing profession requires continuous interactions with the body of the persons who are being assisted: every act of care determines an intimate contact with their bodies and the operator’s one as well. This study aims to explore the experiences of nursing students in relation to their first contact with the patient's body, in particular about students' reflection on the emotions as well as the sensations that the patient's body evoked, on the importance or the unimportance about the touch and the communicative dimension. The research is a qualitative study based on a phenomenological approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. For the results analysis it has been used Giorgi’s approach. Nursing students' experience points out certain difficulties and discomforts in touching the body of assisted people, mainly for two reasons. First, it is the fear of invading their privacy and intimacy, especially if the patients who were assisted belonged to the opposite sex of the students; the second one is the self-awareness of students, especially during the first year, about their lack of skills and knowledge from which originates the fear of harm. Nursing students' experience points out the difficulties and discomforts in touching the body of the assisted patients. The results
invite to reinforce the awareness of the "power" that trainings have with respect to body care and consequently that body care has in relationship care.