[Suffering: representations and challenges].

Research that we carried out aimed to analyzing the suffering as an object of the relation of care and common experiment of this relation. In this way, we have conducted 55 interviews with patients and nurses in an oncology unit. The results underline the central role of the relation for giving meaning to the suffering. The knowledge of the suffering representations appears as a tool for understanding the complex realities connected to the experiences of suffering, and allows to imagine more adapted evaluation methods which could be anchored on "practical knowledge".