ABSTRACT
Objective:
to describe and analyze the challenges and the possibilities of the return to the home in palliative care in the Brazilian and French scenarios.
Method:
ethnographic study conducted in two hospitals, homes and medical-social establishments. Six people in palliative care, four family members and eight health professionals participated in the study. The data were organized through discursive mapping and analyzed from a cultural and Foucaultian perspective.
Results:
to present the results, two categories were elaborated: Strategies for hospital discharge in palliative care and between the family, the state and justice: barriers to return home. It is evident that, in Brazil and in France, the return to the home is an event that faces resistance from the families. This fact is mainly related to the cultural conceptions that hospital palliative care units are places capable of providing comfort at the end of life, and difficult access to home care programs and services. In both countries, due to the complexity of hospital discharge, families and managers judicialize this process.
Conclusion:
the return to the home in palliative care depends on the way death is signified in a culture, the family settings and the existence or not of a network of palliative care in the health systems of each country.
DESCRIPTORS:
Death; Palliative care; Nursing; Home assistance; Cultural anthropology; Patient discharge