title: [Meaning of the death/dying process for entering nursing students].
abstract: This is a qualitative study, based on Heidegger's existential phenomenology, with the purpose of revealing the meaning of death/dying for freshmen students of the nursing program. The study was developed in a public university in the northwest of Paraná, Brazil between August and October 2010, and 33 entering students from a Nursing program were interviewed. The following existential themes emerged from the phenomenological analysis: "Understanding death as a difficult process to be understood"; "Understanding death as a natural process"; and "Perceiving death as a passage to another life". The present study allowed to understand that knowledge and death are entangled in the temporality and the historicity of every being, which requires a scientific, ethical and philosophical understanding of the death/dying phenomenon so that the scholar may prepare for the humanized care of the patient and his/her family.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Estadual de Maringá (UEM), Maringá, Paraná, Brasil.
authors.forename: Gabriella Michel dos Santos
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Benedetti
authors.forename: Kézia
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: William Tiago
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: Catarina Aparecida
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Sales
authors.forename: Patrícia Chatalov
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Ferreira
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001293:Attitude to Death; D032882:Comprehension; D003469:Culture; D004506:Education, Nursing; D004644:Emotions; D005086:Existentialism; D006801:Humans; D033262:Narration; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D011368:Professional-Family Relations; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012067:Religion; D013338:Students, Nursing / Q000523:psychology*