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  • Informal Palliative Care at Home: A Focus Group Study Among Professionals Working in Palliative Care in Portugal
    Publication . Vanessa Marrazes; Laura Gonçalves; Ana Querido; Carlos Laranjeira; Laranjeira, Carlos; Querido, Ana
    Informal caregivers (ICs) are the backbone of homebased palliative care (PC) because they play a vital role in offering more seamless and timely support, preventing suffering and fostering comfort and dignity. Specialized home-based PCteams must recognize ICs’ unmet needs in fulfilling daily responsibilities and enhance their preparedness for caring. In this vein, this study aimed to carry out the following: (a) explore how PC professionals perceive the preparedness of ICs to provide PC at home and (b) determine what barriers and enablers they consider essential for the delivery of high-quality PC at home. Methods: Using purposeful sampling, thirty-four professionals from four disciplines who worked in specialized PC teams were recruited for a descriptive qualitative research study. Four focus group discussions were conducted from September 2024 to January 2025. This was followed by a thematic analysis according to Braun and Clarke’s framework. The findings are reported following the COREQ checklist. Results: Most of the participants were female nurses (n = 22) with a mean age of 41.8 ± 8.62 years. AcademicEditor: JosepVidal-Alaball Received: 30March2025 Revised: 19April2025 Accepted: 22April2025 Published: 23 April2025 Citation: Marrazes,V.; Gonçalves, L.; Querido, A.; Laranjeira, C. Informal Palliative Care at Home: AFocus GroupStudyAmongProfessionals WorkinginPalliative CareinPortugal. Healthcare 2025, 13, 978. https:// doi.org/10.3390/healthcare13090978 Copyright: ©2025bytheauthors. Licensee MDPI,Basel,Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the termsand conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). Three overarching themes were identified: (1) IC needs and motivations for providing care; (2) perceived barriers to good-quality palliative home care; and (3) perceived enablers of good-quality palliative home care. The IC’s preparedness depends on personal characteristics, health status, the scope of tasks, and the ramifications stemming from the complexity of the illness trajectory. Conclusions: Professionals deemed it essential for PC staff to be experienced, accessible, person-centered, and proactive. Furthermore, effective communication and a well-defined network for requesting certain community resources or services were deemed crucial for delivering high-quality PC at home.
    2025-04-23Journal article Open access Show more