Estado nutricional e sua associação com o perfil sintomatológico de pacientes em cuidados paliativos internados em um hospital de urgências do nordeste brasileiro

Abstract

Introduction: Palliative care are provided to patients with irreversible diseases, due to the therapeutic impossibility of cure. Palliative treatment is intended to alleviate the symptoms that affect these individuals, portraying death as something natural and acceptable. Therefore, since there are few studies addressing this theme, the present article aimed to assess the symptoms of patients in palliative care in an emergency hospital in northeastern Brazil and its association with nutritional status. Methods: An analytical cross-sectional study was carried out with a convenience sample of 52 individuals diagnosed with palliative care admitted to the Sergipe Emergency Hospital, from August to September 2018, the Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale questionnaires were applied for evaluation of symptoms, and the Subjective Global Assessment Produced by the Patient, for the nutritional diagnosis. Results: The sample consisted of 52 individuals with an average age of 59.62 ± 15.51 years, most of the individuals were male (53.85%), had neoplasms and about 41.86% were moderately malnourished. Among the symptoms evaluated, the most frequent were: I don’t look like myself anymore (78.85%), weight loss (73.07%), pain (69.23%), sadness (65.38%), mouth drought (57.69%), lack of energy (55.76%). A statistically significant association was observed between physical symptoms and the general scale with the patients’ nutritional status (p <0.05). Conclusion: Given the above, it was possible to conclude that the progression of terminal illness involves physical, psychological, spiritual and social symptoms, which result from the progression of the primary disease, as well as its treatment and comorbidities, with a direct association with nutritional status.