Nursing Approach to the Control of Tuberculosis: Scientific Publications (2002-2011)

As a disease of chronic evolution, Tuberculosis (TB) requires more health care professionals, especially nursing staff, to encourage the patient not to abandon the treatment and achieve a cure. Thus, this study aimed to describe the state of the art of scientific publications regarding the approach that is given to nursing aids regarding TB control. The literature search was performed on the database of the Virtual Health Library, The Lilacs, indexed with the following descriptors: Tuberculosis, nursing, nursing care, nursing services and nursing team. We established the following inclusion criteria: Papers published in Brazil between 2002 and 2011. Selected articles were separated into three categories: "daily practice of nursing care or planning for TB control", "research and teaching in nursing" and "biosafety". We selected twenty-four articles which met the criteria of the study. It was observed that there was an increase in the number of publications since 2005, with 70.9% of articles published in specific nursing journals; 54.2% dealt with actions related to the daily practice of nursing in TB control, 37, 5% were related to the occupational hazard caused by the direct care of patients with TB and just over 8% were related to the teaching and research of the disease for nurses. These findings highlight the interest in understanding the role of nursing care for patients with TB, raising relevant issues with respect to knowledge and skills of these professionals to fulfill their task, including concern about the risk of disease, since they are so exposed to the disease they become part of the care plan for the patient and also to the family of which this patient belongs.