Significados da morte de crianças com câncer: vivências de mães de crianças companheiras de tratamento

Cancer diagnosis often leads to fear of death. Facing the death of children implies admitting the reversal of life cycle and that children also die. The aim of this study was to understand the significance attributed by mothers whosechildren have completed cancer treatment to the death of other children undergoing cancer treatment at the hospital. This is a qualitative phenomenological research. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with seven mothers of children who had already completed oncologic treatment at a tertiary hospital in Sao Paulo State, Brazil. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed for comprehensive analysis of recorded data. The understanding of the phenomenon studied shows that when the mothers recalled the death of a child with cancer at the hospital, the significance they attributed to that event was expressed with strong feelings of frustration, sorrow, and pain. The participants explicitly reported feeling fear whenever a child died at the hospital because it made them think about the possibility of their own child's death or relapse of the disease.