Palliative care: challenges for caregivers and health care providers

The palliative care (PC) aims at humanization of care, at the decrease of suffering and at the preservation of the family and patient’s quality of life during his terminal illness. The objectives were to get to know the discourses and practices regarding PC and the difficulties related to the activities of this kind of care. The method was quanti-qualitative. The participants were health care providers and NON-professional caregivers (N=59) from two hospitals in Campina Grande- PB. The instruments were: a questionnaire and an interview. The analysis of information was oriented by the analysis of enunciation. The analysis of discourses has shown that PC is understood as practices towards pain relief, as support to the patient’s family and finally, as the use of medications. There are doubts concerning psychologists’ performances regarding PC, even if correlate practices are done. This study was relevant because it will be able to indicate public policies concerning the increase of people’s quality of life with terminal illnesses.