Capacidade dos profissionais de saúde de medicina e enfermagem dos cuidados de saúde primários em identificar doentes de cuidados paliativos

INTRODUCTION: Palliative care is a specialized type of healthcare directed to individuals with chronic conditions. According to recent data, only a proportion of the Portuguese population has access to this care, the number of cases referred to specia-lized teams still falling below what would be expected. Doctors and nurses from primary care can play a relevant role in iden-tifying and referring individuals, as they represent their first contact point with the Portuguese National Healthcare Service. OBJECTIVE: Assess the ability of doctors and nurses from primary care to identify palliative care patients and determine facilitating personal factors. MATERIAL & METHODS: Analytical and cross-sectional study, undertaken by submitting a questionnaire to 49 medical and nursing healthcare professionals from two Primary Care Trusts in Lisbon, Portugal, between June and September 2014. Sta-tistical analysis of the data was conducted using the SPSS® 20. RESULTS: Only 14.3% of the sample correctly identified the clinical cases referred to palliative care. From the analyzed con-tributing factors, two were of statistical significance (p < 0.05) in identifying palliative care patients: personal involvement in this area and specific training. CONCLUSIONS: The results obtained demonstrate the need it is essential to strengthen palliative care training among health professionals and facilitate communication between the different elements involved in identifying and referring patients.