Palliative care in primary health care in times of COVID-19: the experience of health professionals

Abstract

Primary care is the organizer and coordinator of palliative care; however, covid-19 brought challenges to its practice. Thus, with the aim of understanding the perception of primary care professionals' performance regarding palliative patient care during the most critical periods of the pandemic, this is the result of qualitative research held in 16 primary care units in a western municipality from Paraná, gathering data obtained via sample calculation and randomization in the R® software. From November 2021 to March 2022, 12 doctors, 16 nurses and 10 social workers were interviewed. Most of them were placed in Family Health Units and were Brazilian; female, with an average age of 40 years; and had specialization in family health, with an average training time of 13 years and 8 years working in their current roles. After being transcribed, the interviews were organized considering Alfred Schütz's phenomenology. The perception regarding healthcare highlighted the adversities, especially due to home visits and the relocation of professionals, when the main expectations focused on adapting the number of professionals and health technologies. This study made it possible to understand, from the professionals' perspective, the impact of the pandemic on the care of palliative patients linked to the researched units.