Coping strategies of the nursing team acting in a burn treatment center.

OBJECTIVE To know the strategies of coping reported by the nursing team that works at a burn center. METHOD This is a qualitative, descriptive and exploratory study carried out with four nurses and six practical nurses at a burn center in southern Brazil. The data was collected from September to November 2013 through semi-structured interviews, and it was analyzed through the content analysis technique, which happened with the software Atlas.ti 7.0. RESULTS Two themes have emerged: coping focused on the problem, and coping focused on the emotion. Among the main strategies of coping focused on the problem, decision-making and re-evaluation actions should be highlighted; and in the coping focused on the emotion, actions centered on resigned acceptance and emotional extravasation stand out. CONCLUSIONS As the professionals interviewed opted for objective and practical strategies, compatible with coping based on the problem, it is believed that the elaboration is influenced by the workers' individual, collective and institutional contexts.