End-of-life patient care in the emergency department - an evolving need

• Autor(a) principal: Pedreirinho, Ana
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Godinho, Hélder, Correia , Paula, Fonseca, Ana, Crilo, Cristina, Rosa, Luís, Santos, Sandra
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://onco.news/index.php/journal/article/view/124
• topic: Cuidados Paliativos; Serviço de Urgência; Enfermagem; Fim de Vida; Dificuldades; Palliative care; Emergency Room; nursing; End of Life; Difficulties

The use of emergency departments by patients in the end of life care path is frequent when there are uncontrolled symptoms. A palliative approach necessary at this stage collides with the context “urgency” and limits the intervention of nurses. This integrative literature review intends to identify the difficulties of nurses in providing care to patients in end of life care path, in the emergency room as well as characterize the nature of care provided in this context. To answer this problem were included studies surveyed in electronic databases, where six articles met the inclusion criteria, published between 2009 and 2015. The main conclusions reveal that there is need for improvement and a lot of effort and dedication by professionals working in emergency departments, especially nurses, as this type of patient needs care focused on relieving uncontrolled symptoms and promoting comfort. Not only the end of life patient needs nursing care, but their families are also fragile and in need of care provided by the whole team.