Editorial

EDITORIAL

This edition of Texto & Contexto Nursing Journal brings significant contributions to contemporary reflections about health, health care, and the multiple dimensions of human life.

In this period of celebration of yet another mark in the process of continual improvement of access to, of visibility, of graphic presentation, and of the technical-scientific patterns of this periodical, nothing moreso than this theme is more relevant. In a happy coincidence, the theme "the human living process" initiates a new year, as well as a new benchmark for the journal. Text & Context Nuring Journal, widely recognized within the academic health care community, changed its classification in October of 2006 from "International C" to "International B" in the listing of "Qualis" in the Nursing field. "Qualis" is a classification given to periodicals by CAPES, the Brazilian governing body of Post-Graduate institutional standards and personnel in the Area of Knowledge by the Council for Coordination of Improvement of Higher Learning Personnel – CAPES, Organization of the Brazilian Ministry of Education which also evaluates and standardizes the "Strictu-Sensu" Post-Graduate Programs (Master’s and Doctorate) in Brazil. To celebrate this recent achievement of Texto & Contexto Nursing Journal is also part of the Human Living Process.

To consider the Human Living Process is a task of such complexity that it becomes necessary to search for subsidies in various knowledge areas. Thus, philosophical, biological, epidemiological, anthropological, and sociological perspectives, as well as historical methods of conceiving and existing while facing life from birth until death, health, health care practices, and more and are fundamental in order to reflect, produce knowledge, and act in accordance to these processes. On the other hand, we see that this complex and multifaceted process presents distinct faces and interfaces that connect and are connected, configuring tangled networks which many times include the human being without the human being finding him/herself, especially when one discusses health care, or the lack thereof.

Thus, this edition of Texto & Contexto Nursing Journal toasts readers and those who study the field of health care with twenty-two original articles. Fourteen of these result from original research, five are theoretical reflections, as well as a literature review, and two experience reports. This is in addition to the two abstracts resulting from a doctor’s dissertation and another from a master’s thesis.

The set of scientific production contained in this edition consists of a contribution to the the theoretical construction of the "Human Living Process", which is fundamental to the comprehension of the complexity of the object of health care professional’s work.

First, this edition demonstrates that human life is a process containing multiple dimensions, having a biological and subjective singularity and involving ethical-philosophical, cultural, and social dimensions. At the same time, it indicates that human life has a collective dimension which expresses itself in historical societies and in different perspectives and values for family living and social groups. Beyond this, it points to the dimension of the nature of work, of social relationships, of the health-sickness process, and of the care process.

Secondly, this edition helps to point out that the living process involves a complex inter-relationship between health and sickness. Rather, it involves the individual living process of suffering and the different possibilities of becoming sick and dying in the diverse moments of the vital cycle, as well as it signals that these are strongly influenced by the conditions of life and by access to health care services and practices. It involves cultural conceptions about health and sickness, the treatment processes, cure or living with disease, and/or incapacities. It involves the possibilities of healthy living and risk situations and/or vulnerabilities. Thus, it demonstrates that each singularity is also part of a totality that expresses itself in demographic profiles, in rates of morbidity of populations in micro, macro, local, and planetary arenas.

Thirdly, these articles outline the importance of the dimension of work in human living. Work constitutes a dimension of life that dialectally may provide pleasure and/or the expression of creativity, as well as it may be a stimulus for health or offer risks and/or cause suffering, damage to one’s health, and disease. This edition especially deals with the complexity of health care work which promotes the encounter among subjects with multiple necessities, which may approximate or distance themselves, as well as are changed in diverse physical, social, and temporal arenas.

The scientific production contained in this edition, derived from Brazilian and foreign authors, invites readers to similar literature and hopes to stimulate reflection. Beyond this, it offers justification for updating our conceptions and practices facing the human living process, for this edition encompasses various movements, finding human beings in different stages and situations of life.

Dra. Denise E. P. de Pires

– Professor of the Graduate (PEN) and Undergraduate Nursing Courses at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC). Coordinator of Reserach and Scientific Production of the Nursing Department at UFSC, PEN, and Member of the Study Group for Work, Health, Citizenship, and Nursing (PRAXIS) –

Dra. Telma Elisa Carraro

– Professor of the Graduate (PEN) and Undergraduate Nursing Courses at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) and Leader of the Caring and Comforting Research Group (C&C) –

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  13 Sept 2007
• Date of issue
  Mar 2007