The present work studies questions related to burned patients and their influences in the communication process. It aims at contributing to the nursing concern about the creation of tools to identify communication problems, to formulate nursing diagnoses involving these changes as well as to elaborate alternative proposals in the care of patients with impaired communication. The results found by DALRI (1993) - showed 3 patients with the diagnosis of impaired communication. The authors, utilizing the Taxonomy I of the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) 1990, analyzed the data using the proposal of CARVALHO & COLER (1994). They found 14 patients with this alteration (Impaired Communication), confirming the hypothesis that the second proposal for the diagnoses of Impaired Communication is more comprehensive. Frequent related factors were: physical conditions - anatomical alterations (visual and phono system); stress and altered perception. Common defining characteristics were: expressions of anxiety/depression; partial and total visual deficit and dyspneia.
nursing diagnosis; impaired communication
