Comunicação de más notícias por residentes em ginecologia e obstetrícia

Abstract

The need and idea of systematizing the process of communicating bad news arises mainly from the complexity of the task, the difficulty presented by the professionals in charge and the deficiency in the approach to this topic in undergraduate courses and in health institutions. Therefore, communicating a fetal loss or malformation, as well as a diagnosis of breast or uterine cancer, becomes a delicate task for many doctors, especially obstetrics and gynecology residents. The objective of this study is to understand the perspectives, barriers and practices of gynecology and obstetrics residents of a Brazilian Maternity School, located in Rio Grande do Norte, in relation to communicating bad news to patients and their families. This is a crosssectional study with a qualitative approach through research, where a semi-structured interview was carried out with gynecology and obstetrics residents, using a previously prepared script. The results showed that for residents, the way information is presented and the context in which it is provided tend to be more influential than the content of the information itself. Thus, specialists in obstetrics and gynecology could significantly benefit from training and protocols designed specifically for the nuances of their area of expertise. However, the effective implementation of these capabilities still faces challenges, highlighting the lack of concrete data on the most effective methods in this context.