Nursing professional education: implications of education for transpersonal care

Abstract

This study identifies the perceptions of undergraduate nursing students concerning their education to provide transpersonal care. This qualitative study was conducted in four public universities in Bahia, Brazil with 16 seniors (non-probabilistic sampling) through semi-structured interviews, analyzed through the Collective Subject Discourse. The results expressed the students’ feelings in the face of the challenge to provide transpersonal care; the psycho-cognitive competencies required by inter-subjective praxis; their perceptions concerning the curriculum in relation to the psycho-emotional dimension of being, untying critical knots; strategies suggested. The final reflections indicate the need to implement changes in the professional education of nurses in order to recover the humanistic view while preserving the scientific view. Undergraduate courses should develop an interactive methodology capable of supporting a more humane, sensitive and inter-subjective care praxis.