O conforto da família em cuidados paliativos

: tradução e validação para a população portuguesa do holistic comfort questionnaire (family)

Abstract

Meeting the needs of comfort are a measure of quality of care in nursing and Palliative Care and therefore is important to provide a tool for assessing the comfort of the family of patients in end of life, translated and validated for the Portuguese language and culture. The Holistic Comfort Questionnaire (HCQ) - Family was the selected instrument, built on Kolcaba’s Theory of Holistic Comfort. This study aims to identify the socio-demographic characteristics, of care of the patient, health and quality of life of family members of patients in end of life, hospitalized or followed-up in a hospital; to identify the health/clinical characteristics of patients in end of life, hospitalized or followed-up in a hospital; to translate and validate to the Portuguese population the instrument HCQ (Family); to identify the level of comfort of the family of patients in end of life, hospitalized or followed-up in a hospital. Based on the HCQ (Family) a study of methodological research was conducted, following the same methodology of the original authors. The instrument was validated with a sample of 271 family members of patients in end of life, hospitalized or followed-up in a hospital, mostly female (66.8%) with an average age of 47,6 years (σ=14,6). After analyzing the reliability of the items, the HCQ (Family) - Portugal was constituted of 19 items, differing from the original scale. These items were organized in three factors (relief, tranquility and transcendence), which explains 44,55% of variance explained. The coefficient α of Cronbach (0,83) suggests that the instrument has good internal consistency. Bearing in mind that the values may vary between 1 and 6 can also be noted that the family members of patients have an average of good comfort (3,8 with a σ=0,8). The validation of the Portuguese HCQ (Family) has revealed that this instrument is appropriate and psychometrically valid to assess the comfort of family members of patients in end of life, hospitalized or followed-up in a hospital, although it suggests the need for further studies of in this area, applying this instrument in other populations and contexts

Date of Award	Oct 2012
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Maria dos Anjos Dixe (Supervisor) & Ana Querido (Co-Supervisor)