Projeto ETIC

Research
ProjectEnd
of Life Trajectories In Care (ETIC)Managing end-of-life trajectories in
palliative care: a study on the work of healthcare professionals Funded by the Fundação
para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)PTDC/SOC-SOC/30092/2017 Research Center | CICS.NOVAPartnership | Instituto Politécnico de Portalegre – Universidade de ÉvoraPrincipal Investigator: Alexandre Martins (CICS.NOVA –
ESECS-IPP) [e-mail]______This project aims to set the basis for a deep
and consistent sociological research about the work of health professionals in
the different types of palliative care (PC) teams existent in Portugal, in
order to develop a groundwork model suitable to increase the quality of the
intervention of PC teams, namely in what we might call its social dimension.
Thus, the objectives of the project are: i) to analyze collaboratively the
processes of defining and communalizing medically-defined end-of-life (EoL)
trajectories put into place by PC professionals in order to reduce uncertainty
and appease disquietude and discord among relevant actors (the patients and
their families) in EoL situations in the frame of PC; ii) to identify and
systematize collaboratively the main interactional difficulties and challenges
which occur in these processes of definition and communalization; iii) to
understand if and in what grounds there is significant variation in this kind
of processes in different PC contexts, i.e., in different types of PC team; iv)
to organize, departing from the knowledge produced in the frame of the
objectives i), ii) and iii), a knowledge transfer groundwork model suited to
enhance the quality of the interventions of PC teams, namely in what concerns
the processes in analysis. The study intends to contribute to the
advancement of knowledge in the field of sociological studies over PC, namely
in Portugal, by: analyzing
the ways by which PC professionals try to reduce discord and uncertainty in PC
by composing a diversity of views and engagements around EoL. We consider that the main expectable achievements
of the research here designed are: (i) the advancement of knowledge in our
area, substantiated by (a) an enlargement of the Portuguese Sociology of
Health’s field of study, which has produced, until this date, few studies about
palliative care (let us note that palliative care is a recent field of work of
in our country); (b) an improvement of our theoretical framework, previously
established in our own sociological research, developed about palliative care,
which will be upgraded by testing the concepts used in a field where we expect
to see some of their limits and possibilities at work; (ii) the production of
socially useful information and knowledge (a) about some central conditions of
professional action and judgement in palliative care, which may be useful for
the reflection about practices of professionals in the field; (b) which may
suit the needs of Non-Governmental Organizations and Public Agencies in this
sector. Each Unit participating in the project will
constitute a field of observations. The notes of ethnographic observation will
be complemented by photographs of the places and the most significant moments
of daily professional life. Field notes and documentary photography will serve
as an empirical basis for the collaborative work of demarcation of the
professionally relevant interaction frames, whose recording or subsequent
filming will document the modus operandi of the services and the local
management of the problems and tensions inherent to their provision. The
involvement of professionals in the delineation of the interactive frameworks
worthy of a direct and in-depth study will, from the beginning, enhance the
collaborative dimension that is one of the challenges and one of the motors of
this project, which is claimed by participatory action research and
professional research. Each team of professionals will define in consultation
with the researchers a data collection plan, preferably on a self-recording
basis. The constitution of each corpus includes a
subtask of self-selection of excerpts that it is important to transcribe and
analyze. The professionals will be invited to delimit in the recordings that
have made interactive episodes endowed, in their eyes (perspective emic), of
interest and relevance. The collection of each corpus within each participating
family will be followed by a subtask of selection of transcribed and analyzed
sections, which will be carried out in a more or less collaborative way,
depending on the availability and motivation of each family

The above selected sections in the corpus
collected in the various terrains will be transcribed, according to
Jeffersonian conventions, developed by conversation analysts for the purpose of
speech-in-interaction transcription. ______Adjunct
Investigator: Michel Binet (CLISSIS – ISSSL-ULL)

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