Introduction

It is of great importance to understand and apply palliative care in health professional practice. The purpose of this study is to assess the perception of intensive care nurses in relation to the adherence to the principles of palliative care in their health care practice.

Materials and Methods

A descriptive correlational cross-sectional study was carried out in 104 nurses from twelve intensive care units of five hospitals in a capital city of Northeast Brazil, held between January and December 2017. The interviewees assigned a value to relevance/importance of each principle in their health care practice with patients in terminal stages of an illness.

Results

The principles that proved to be the most relevant for the health care practice were: to alleviate pain and other related symptoms; to ensure the quality of life and the act of dying; to always prioritize the best interests of the patient and to respect the autonomy of the patients and their guardians. On the other hand, those principles that received a lower value were: to assure life and consider death as a normal life process and to evaluate the cost-benefit in each medical approach assumed.

Discussions

Nurses showed to recognize a high relevance/importance of the principles of palliative care in intensive care therapy.

Conclusions

The two principles with the lowest value refer to important ethical dilemmas for professionals that need to be widely discussed.

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