Body Image in Nursing Scientific Production: Special Focus on Patients with Cancer

Abstract

Body image is a concept that refers to the mental image of the human body and how one perceives the body. It is an important phenomenon for nursing, since it is considered for the elaboration of the nursing diagnostic "Disturbed Body Image" by North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) Taxonomy. The purpose of this study is to verify, in the national nursing scientific production, publications on body image and analyze the tendencies of how to approach this theme. This is a narrative review study, without meta-analysis. Data collection was performed through a survey on Lilacs, BDENF, and Scielo data banks for the period 1967 to 2007. After reading 28 abstracts, two summarized articles, and eight full articles, the following thematic categories were created relating body image to: chronic degenerative diseases, the elderly, professional valorization, adolescents, nursing practice, nursing theories, philosophical reflection, obesity, scale validation, and nursing education. The survey evidenced that cancer patients unveiled that body image is a nursing theme. Among 22 studies, 19 are associated with cancer. It is acknowledged that the Brazilian Journal of Cancerology is the periodical with most publications and that is in harmony with the findings regarding the constructed categories, considering that cancer represents the pathology that is closest linked to the theme. Cancer and oncology, as specialties, determine the occurrence of complex situations, such as the therapeutic aggressiveness associated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy; and surgeries, often mutilating; hence the pertinence of our findings.