Evaluación de conocimientos sobre cuidados paliativos en los profesionales sanitarios del hospital del Instituto Oncológico Nacional, SOLCA, Guayaquil.

Abstract

In order to determine knowledge about palliative care amoung the medical staff of the National Oncological Institute, SOLCA, Guayaquil, a descriptive observational cross-sectional study was carried out using “The Palliative Care Knowledge Questionnaire for PEACE” of Yamamoto et al., Spanish version. A total of 180 physicians including specialists, graduate residents and general practitioners, were interviewed using a self-applied questionnaire. The sample was represented by a median aged 33 years (range 25-74) and 70% between 25 and 35 years; female predominance (55.6%); 86.1% with in-hospital work; 83.3% with professional experience < 10 years (P ˂ 0.001) and 90% with institutional experience < 10 years (P ˂ 0.001). The knowledge about Palliative Care of 82.8% (n = 149) were between 40% and 70% and only 2.8% (n = 5) exceeded 70%. The most scored items were: psychiatric consultation for suicidal ideas (95%), communication of bad news (95%), use of anxiolytics for psychological distress (85%), doctor-patient communication without restrictions (84.4%), opioid rotation (83.3%), etiology of delirium (82.2%), anguish and suicide (81.7%), laxatives in opioid therapy (78.3%), meaning of palliative care (75%), use of opioid associated with other analgesics (72.2%) and use of morphine in dyspnea (71.7%).