Avaliação do conhecimento dos acadêmicos de um curso de medicina em Belém do Pará sobre cuidados paliativos

Abstract

Introduction: The definition of palliative care refers to the care practice performed by a multidisciplinary team for patients with life-threatening diseases. These cares should be started as soon as possible, right after the diagnosis, in order to prevent the suffering of the patient and their families. Therefore, knowledge of palliative care by medical students is essential so that, once they graduate, they can provide it, providing comprehensive and adequate care to the patient. Objective: To assess the knowledge of medical students about palliative care in the first, fifth, ninth and twelfth semesters of graduation. Method: This is a research with a quantitative approach, carried out at the Centro Universitário do Pará (CESUPA), on the João Paulo do Valle Mendes campus, headquarters of the Medicine course, Belém, Pará, Brazil. For data collection, a questionnaire containing open and closed questions about the knowledge of students about palliative care was used. Data Analysis: The database was built from Microsoft Excel 2016 and Word programs. All tests were performed using the BioEstat 5.5 program. Qualitative variables were described by frequency and percentage. The independence or association between two independent categorical variables was tested by the chi-square test and the significant associations were detailed by standardized residual analysis. Results with p ≤ 0.05 (bilateral) were considered statistically significant. Results: There was an evolution in the theoretical knowledge of students about palliative care during the semesters of the course, 77.5% of students do not feel able to work with palliative care based on the knowledge acquired in graduation, 73.3% of students know that this care does not apply only to situations of terminality in life, 70.8% of students are not able to recognize the appropriate time to start palliative care. Conclusion: It is necessary to boost the knowledge of palliative care of students in medical graduation, in order to train doctors to work in this care modality, which is still little known by health professionals.