Des médecins parlent de leur expérience de l’annonce: L’annonce d’une maladie grave de l’enfant à ses parents

Abstract: Objectives of the study: To better understand, firstly, what the physician anticipates in regard to the announcement he is to make to parents whose child suffers from severe-chronic disease: his objectives, his interlocutors, the emotions he will be confronted with, the hurdles he will encounter, the development of the process and, secondly, how the caregivers, who do not attend the announcement, imagine this scene and what their presence could bring. Particular attention is paid to the position allotted to fathers as well as siblings by both populations. Population: Twelve hospital doctors (six men, six women), 12 women caregivers working in 10 wards throughout hospitals in the Paris region and the province (outpatient consultations or hospitalization) for pathologies of various nature at various periods of time. Method: Three-way analysis of the corpus of semidirective interviews that are tape-recorded: specific psychodynamics, automatic screening of discourse, thematic. Results: The physician describes a tragedy, primarily addresses the mother, feels as though speaking to the father – except in neonatology – and to the children puts him in a predicament. He experiences the satisfaction of a deed well-done, despite feelings of solitude, failure and shame that he attempts to conceal behind the mightiness of knowledge that is to be transmitted. Decisions concerning abortion for medical reasons place a burden on him. The caregivers believe they are able to help the doctor by being present during the announcement given their closeness to the parents, whom they readily place in a near future made remediable by speaking of handicap rather than disease. Conclusion: Doctors, in fear of emotional contagion, grant privilege to informative discourse to the detriment of empathetic communication and suffer from a feeling of failure. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]