PERCEPÇÃO DO MÉDICO NOS CUIDADOS PALIATIVOS EM PACIENTES TERMINAIS

Abstract

Palliative care is guided by broader and more complex assistance for the terminal patient or those with a chronic disease with no possibility of cure, requiring a team with several professionals, each one performing their activities to reach a service that assures the patient quality of life, relief, and human dignity. This care seeks to improve physical, psychological, spiritual, and social symptoms with a focus on reducing the suffering of the patient and his or her family. Palliative medicine enters this scenario with the figure of the physician in the role of coordinator in the communication between the team, family, and patient, being also responsible for the early diagnosis and prognosis of the disease. The doctor will intervene to relieve the patient's symptoms and together define an ideal therapy to provide a better quality of life for the patient. For this to happen, it is necessary that there is an effective dialogue between the team and that the patient's autonomy is respected. Thus, it is clear the importance of the physician's perception of the value that palliative care has for terminal patients or patients with chronic diseases because it reduces suffering and provides a better quality of life. This is a cross-sectional, exploratory, descriptive study with a qualitative approach. It is expected that physicians will be aware of the importance that palliative care has in the lives of terminally ill patients.