Abstract :
[en] Background: A French law of 2009 made Therapeutic Education of Patient (TEP) mandatory in settings. This led to emerging new ways of practice. The TEP is often used in the context of chronic illness, which forces the sick persons to manage their care trajectories by themselves. TEP helps them to develop an active expertise, thanks to a personalized process based on an empathic approach. The introduction of TEP processes goes together with adaptations of the care relation. The objective of this article is to report the elements relative to the evolution of postures in nurse-sick person relation, emerged from a larger study on TEP.
Methods: We have opted for an approach of collaborative action research, with a qualitative methodology.
Two series of comprehensive interviews were conducted at six months intervals, with several caregivers of hospital settings, sick persons, families, transversal workers in hospital, and external workers. This was accompanied by non-participative observations, collection of written prints of activity and focus groups. The results were obtained using thematic analysis.
Results: In their description of relation to caregivers, sick persons identify the following themes: status of subject, availability of caregivers, communication modalities, caregivers’ characteristics influencing the relation.Caregivers identifies the themes of the posture in relation and of the working conditions.
Conclusions and discussion: For what concern nurses, sick person’s report mainly a lack of physical or psychological availability, insufficient consideration for feelings, an absence of holistic view, a tendency to seize power. Regardless of its educative objectives, TEP is the opportunity for the caregiver to develop a qualitative relational dimension, based on a holistic conception of health and care and on an understanding of the complementarity of the role of both parties.
