O nível do conhecimento sobre cuidados paliativos dos estudantes de medicina da UFPB e médicos do HULW

Abstract

Palliative care has gained extreme importance in medicine, since in the last 30 years the average life of the population has increased, thus emerging a range of chronic diseases that were not as prevalent as it is today. Concomitant to this, medicine has evolved a lot from a technological point of view, allowing life support, or better, the extension of life to be better performed, either with cutting-edge equipment, or with more possibilities of procedures. This provided a scenario where it was questioned whether the patients' quality of life was being maintained together with artificial physiological functions or treatments performed. Dr. Cicely Saunders, in the 60s, had this concern for the first time, founding a philosophy of care called Palliative Care and creating Hospices (St. Christopher's Hospice in England, London), which are establishments where the patients, with incurable diseases, were cared for, seeking to nullify suffering or mitigate them,

using the health system and drugs rationally. As a result, it has been questioned whether doctors leave with a palliative care base to better care for patients, where the ability to work in a multidisciplinary way is extremely important. There is a tendency in medical schools in the world to carry out disciplines that deal with the topic, conducting studies to assess the level of knowledge of their students at different times of graduation. Therefore, this work seeks to assess the level of knowledge of medical students and doctors at HULW.