| Resumo: | Introduction: Palliative care focus on the control of functional disorders and complex symptomatology and are assumed as an essential element of health care. Objectives and methods: The aim of this study is to provide an analysis of all the 108 dissertations of the master’s degree in palliative care which were discussed and approved at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, between the years of 2004 and 2016, according to their thematic characteristics, logistics, methodology, type and number of participants and researchers over the two sequential periods. There were no significant differences in all the analyzed variables when comparing these two periods. Results: It was verified, in the authorship of dissertations, a predominance of the nurses group when compared to other professional groups and the collaboration of nearly 8,000 participants, mostly patients with several diseases of severe oncological prevalence and that were evaluated in the hospital context all over the country. The main addressed themes are distinguished by a decreasing representation degree of the assessment of the general needs in palliative care, the quality of life and satisfaction of informal caregivers as well as their attitudes, experiences, knowledge and skills, especially those of the healthcare professionals. It also appears as a relevant thematic the general and specific symptomatic assessment of patients, the intervention studies in palliative care along with existential, spiritual and ethical problems, communication and grief, covering, this way, an entire spectrum of key areas that are essential to the practice of palliative care. Quantitative methods were the most used ones, with a strong component on the retrospective studies, using scales. According to the qualitative methods used, there is a focus on the content analysis, from semi-structured interviews. Conclusions: Analysing the limitations that were found, this study suggests four strategic lines for the development of research in palliative care in Portugal. |
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