From living to play to playing to live: the unveiling of the child

Author(s)

Luciana de Lione Melo

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Ribeirão Preto.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Enfermagem (EE/SBD)
• Defense date: 2003-09-26

Examining board members

Elizabeth Ranier Martins do Valle; Marcia Bucchi Alencastre; Creusa Capalbo; Adriana Katia Corrêa; Circéa Amalia Ribeiro

• Advisor: Elizabeth Ranier Martins do Valle

Abstract

Children’s cancer is a chronic disease that demands a long, invasive and painful treatment. The therapeutic advances enable the ambulatory treatment. However, it is as stressful as the hospitalization. Therefore, it is important for the child to have space to express their anxieties regarding this new reality – the disease’s world and the oncology treatment– when they are waiting to receive their treatment. The playing room is a place that favors the children’s development and help them to understand what is happening with them while they play. The purpose of this study is to learn the meaning of being children with cancer being submitted to ambulatory treatment and using the play room as a possibility to enable their expression about their world. Thus, a play room was built at a philanthropic hospital in the city of Ribeirão Preto, SP, Brazil. Seven children from 3 to 9 years of age with the diagnosis of cancer participated in the study from August, 2001 to January, 2002. During their appointments, the children were invited to play and oriented to stay there as long as they wanted. After the playing sessions, the tapes were transcribed and complemented with observations. Aiming at learning about the meaning of these experiences to children with cancer, author analyzed these data based on the Marting Heidegger’s existential phenomenology. The children-with-cancer showed a movement that was permeated sometimes by the authenticity, when the child assumed the disease and their being-to-death and also by the lack of authenticity, when they were influenced by their family and members of the health team. The situation of playing enabled the access to these children who were severely ill. (AU)