Revisão de literatura acerca dos cuidados paliativos em pacientes com diagnóstico de Covid-19

Abstract

Nowadays, palliative care has been requested by people affected by COVID-19 as a proposal to improve their quality of life. Palliative care, according to the World Health Organization, comprises assistance provided by a multidisciplinary team and includes the human being in an integral way, being carried out through early identification, treatment of pain and other physical, social, psychological and spiritual symptoms. These must be started from the moment of diagnosis of a disease with risk of lethality, as in the case of COVID-19. In this way, the present paper has the general objective of identifying how palliative care is occurring in COVID-19 patients. It is proposed, in this paper, a depth study through a narrative literature review, with a qualitative approach, which was based on studies already published, since the year 2020, on palliative care and COVID-19. For the choice studies, a bibliographical research was carried out in the search for scientific publications available in a site called “Portal de Periódicos da CAPES”. The results show that there was a lot of difficulty in implementing palliative care during the pandemic, new care strategies had to be thought of and these often ended up making it difficult to adequately treat the symptoms, as well as communication with family members, who could not be present. It is noticed that the use of technology as a way of communication was a differential in facing this pandemic, where assistance and care for family members could be done online. In view of the above, it is expected that this research will contribute to a greater understanding of what palliative care is for people diagnosed with COVID-19 and may expand knowledge about this topic in order to improve care for patients affected by this disease.