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Abstract

Introduction: The Portuguese population is in an aging process so palliative needs should be predictably increasing. One of the barriers to timely access to palliative care is the difficulty in identifying patients who may benefit from it. These patients are mainly in the community. Therefor primary health care teams are in the best position to identify patients with potential palliative needs. We aimed to assess palliative needs in a Family Health Unit in Matosinhos.
Methods: Cross-sectional observational study in a sample of patients aged 65 years or over from a Family Health Unit in Matosinhos, using the palliative needs assessment scale – SPICT-PT™.
Results: The sample consisted of 349 patients, 56.4% female and 43.6% male. The median age was 74 years. The most prevalent pathological group was related to the circulatory system, followed by the group of endocrine diseases and oncological diseases. 25 (7.2%) patients with palliative needs were identified. These have a higher median age as well as a higher degree of dependence. This group had a greater number of diseases of the circulatory system, psychological and oncological. Of the patients with palliative needs, 6 (24%) were referred to the palliative care team.
Conclusion: The identification of 7.2% of patients with palliative needs is similar to that reported in other studies. The low number of referrals of patients with palliative needs to the palliative care team may be due to a clear difficulty of family physicians in identifying these patients or to the fact that patients are symptomatically controlled and are of low complexity. The application of this tool allows the identification of these patients and the best planning of care at various levels. The divulgation and application of the SPICT-PT™ tool in primary health care could be an added value in improving the identification of these patients, knowledge, provision and planning of care at various levels.