Ceilings of treatment and treatment adequacy in the Emergency department – retropective Study
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-6108.2022.1.41370Keywords:
Ceilings of treatment, palliative care, Emergency DepartmentAbstract
Introduction: the Emergency Department is in a constant state of antagonism due to its nature towards the acute pathology, and quality of palliative care. Our study aims to assess whether the definition of a therapeutic ceiling leads to differences in the adequacy of the diagnostic methods and therapy instituted.
Material and methods: retrospective descriptive monocentric analysis of patients who died the first 6 months of 2018 in the emergency department of Hospital do Espírito Santo de Évora.
Results: the three groups of patients were compared, one without any therapeutic ceiling defined, with the group in which they started palliative measures and the group in which the Decision to Not Resuscitate was made. There were no significant differences between ages, place of residence and comorbidities except for dementia (p=0.006), but there is a difference in the degree of dependence on activities of daily living (p<0.001). It was found that there are no differences between the number or type of complementary diagnostic tests, but there are some differences in the therapy instituted since in the group of patients in palliative care, therapy with morphine (p<0.001), butylscopolamine (p=0.001) and paracetamol (p=0.004) was more frequent. Invasive ventilation only occurred in the group of patients without therapeutic ceiling (p<0.001), while oxygen therapy was more frequent in Decision to Not Resuscitate or in palliative care groups (p<0.001).
Discussion and conclusion: the doctors of the emergency department recognize that their patients are at the end of their lives, partially adapting the therapy to control symptoms, pain and secretions.
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