UNDERGRADUATE NURSING STUDENT PREPARATION FOR PALLIATIVE CARE: LITERATURE REVIEW/PREPARACAO DO ESTUDANTE DE ENFERMAGEM QUANTO AOS CUIDADOS PALIATIVOS: REVISAO DE LITERATURA/PREPARACION DEL ESTUDIANTE DE ENFERMERIA EN CUIDADOS PALIATIVOS: REVISION DE LITERATURA

Palliative care is understood as the promotion of quality of life for patients and their families by offering comfort and relief from suffering. Given the exponential increase in life expectancy, it is essential that healthcare professionals, especially in nursing, are prepared and equipped to care for these patients. However, there is a gap in the training of these professionals. To identify how undergraduate education prepares nursing students to work in palliative care, a qualitative, descriptive, and exploratory study in the form of a narrative literature review was conducted. Fifteen articles were reviewed, revealing deficiencies in the approach to this topic. Authors expressed participants' difficulty in coping with death due to the negative feelings that surround it, highlighting the importance of addressing this issue within educational contexts. A critical analysis of the National Curricular Guidelines for Nursing revealed the responsibility of schools to educate generalist nurses capable of critically and reflexively practicing with scientific rigor and ethical principles. Based on theoretical frameworks and researchers' experiences, it is considered that graduates often complete their education without experiencing end-of-life processes, potentially leading to barriers in caring for terminal patients. Finally, it is recommended that further studies be conducted on palliative care themes, proposing enhancements to their integration within educational frameworks. Keywords: Nursing; palliative care; hospice and palliative care nursing; health human resource training. Os cuidados paliativos sao compreendidos como a promocao da qualidade de vida do paciente e seus familiares ofertando conforto e alivio do sofrimento. Considerando o aumento exponencial da expectativa de vida faz-se necessario que os profissionais da saude, em especial da enfermagem, sejam preparados e capacitados para cuidar destes pacientes. Entretanto, observa-se uma lacuna na formacao deste profissional. Objetivando identificar como a graduacao prepara os academicos de enfermagem para atuar nos cuidados paliativos, realizou-se um estudo qualitativo, descritivo e exploratorio do tipo revisao de literatura narrativa. Foram lidos no total 15 artigos, no qual se constatou a falha da abordagem do tema. Os autores expressam a dificuldade dos participantes em lidar com a morte em decorrencia dos sentimentos negativos que a permeiam e trazem a abordagem desta tematica como processo essenci