Avaliação da qualidade de vida de pacientes em cuidados paliativos

Abstract

Palliative Care is an area of medicine that specializes in treating diseases without a cure, and thus aims to provide the patient with a better quality of life. This study aims to evaluate the quality of life of patients who started treatment in Palliative Care by SUS (Unified Health System) in a School Hospital of São José do Rio Preto / SP. Thus, the quality of life questionnaire (WHOQOL-bref) for the patients was initially applied. In a second moment, a semi-structured interview was carried out with the relatives / caregivers, to identify if the patients had an improvement in the quality of life after starting the treatment, and the satisfaction with the services provided. In view of the results obtained, Palliative Care does in fact contribute to an improvement in the quality of life. It is concluded, therefore, that because it is a new area, there are still challenges for its effective implementation, but that is moving towards this end.