Palliative care is an active, coordinated and comprehensive care and it is undoubtedly a human right. Its main objective is to promote the welfare, comfort and quality of life of patients and their families. Since a significant number of patients would like to die at home, the home becomes a primary focus of attention for healthcare professionals. Due to the evolution of the underlying disease and the treatments performed, feeding in palliative patients is often much altered. Nutritional and food support becomes essential, it must accompany patients and their families from the time of diagnosis until death. One of the dietary changes that cause the greatest impact in the life of the patient and his family is switching from the oral to the artificial route. Knowing the biological, therapeutic, socio-cultural and psycho-spiritual or religious meaning of food, it became important to understand, from the perspective of the caregivers responsible for food, how they live the problem of changing the feeding route, so that care can be directed to them considering their point of view. To achieve the above objective, a literature review, complemented by performing a prolonged observation in a Community Care Unit and interviews with family caregivers of people with chronic and progressive receiving artificial nutrition at home disease was performed. The results allowed a first explanation of the phenomena, realizing that family caregivers percept the feeding route change as one of the most profound changes in their lives, with social impact, because they become responsible for the preparation and administration of meals with different requirements. We conclude that this issue warrants a more thorough approach to the subject in future research work.
Date of Award | 2015 |
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Original language | Portuguese |
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Awarding Institution | - Universidade Católica Portuguesa
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Supervisor | Margarida Maria Vieira (Supervisor) |
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- Home palliative care
- End of life
- Oral feeding
- Artificial nutriton
- Family caregiver
- Mestrado em Cuidados Paliativos
Da alimentação oral á nutrição artificial em cuidados paliativos domiciliários: processos e significados para os familiares cuidadores
Reis, C. V. P. (Student). 2015
Student thesis: Master's Thesis