Impacto clínico de uma linha de apoio especializada no cuidado aos doentes paliativos e famílias em contexto comunitário

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: There is an increase of the information that the community receives about Palliative Care, therefore there is more search for this specialized area of medicine and there are more possibilities for the patients to chose home as their ideal place of death. There is an increase in the number of Supportive Palliative Care Community Teams and because of that there is a need to study the impact that these teams have on the care provided to the palliative patients and their families. It is known that there are a lot of unneeded admissions and medical interventions, but all of these have a negative impact on the health economy, and to avoid these expenses there should be the possibility to offer different and safe caring alternatives to the patients and their families. For a family to have their relative and care for them at home, they need to feel safe and supported and for this, it has to possible to contact a specialized health care professional when there are questions about uncontrolled symptoms, medication or doubts about the care the patient needs. With this we can understand the importance of the community teams having a specialized phone line available. OBJECTIVE: Identify the outcomes resulting from a permanent and specialized phone support line for palliative patients and families at home. METHOD: It will be developed an analytical retrospective observing study within a Supportive Palliative Care Community Team. The study will require a specific characterization of the phone calls’ motives (uncontrolled symptoms, follow ups, medication, others), what is the number of phone calls for the same motives, the resolution of the motive, time of the day and week, and was there a need to transfer the patient to a health institution. LIMITATIONS: The study results should not be generalized. The data is collected only within one community team and by the same community team. Therefore, there is no control group and there might be some failures when registering all the calls that are made and received. MAIN GOAL AND EXPECTED IMPLICATIONS: To promote the investigation on this subject to understand the impact that a specialized phone line might have on the symptom control, quality of life and feeling of safety on palliative care patients and their families at home.

Date of Award	21 Jun 2022
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Manuel Luís Capelas (Supervisor)