Assessing breast cancer patients' understanding and decision-making skills about palliative care and advance care planning.

• Grant number: 22/03842-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2022
• End date: April 30, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Collective Health - Preventive Medicine
• Principal Investigator: Bianca Sakamoto Ribeiro Paiva
• Grantee: Laura Fiacadori de Almeida
• Host Institution: Hospital do Câncer de Barretos. Barretos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Introduction: Faced with a life-threatening disease that generates suffering and anxiety about its diagnosis and prognosis, the cancer patient experiences pain in all domains. Palliative Care (PC) is considered an approach that aims to improve the perceived quality of life of patients as well as their families when facing problems associated with life-threatening diseases. This care approach has as its main objective the prevention and relief of suffering through early identification, correct assessment, and treatment of pain and other domains, whether physical, psychosocial, or even spiritual. Thus, care that is integrated with standard treatment, valuing the decisions and advance care planning of each patient, with a focus on overall well-being is necessary and can be provided in oncology clinical practice. Objective: To evaluate the understanding and decision-making capacity of breast cancer patients regarding palliative care and advance care planning. Materials and Methods: A descriptive, cross-sectional study will be carried out at the Hospital de Câncer de Barretos with patients from the breast cancer outpatient clinic. Expected results: It is expected, by means of the instruments, to identify the patients' knowledge about Palliative Care and their decision making capacities in order to propose in future research the implementation of educational strategies that may facilitate the early referral of these patients to palliative care as well as implement advance care planning in clinical practice.