Palliative Care in the state of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil): characteristics of the services

This research explores the status of Palliative Care (PC) services in the state of Rio de Janeiro (RJ), Brazil, by identifying the number of services and their respective characteristics. Through an observational, cross-sectional, descriptive, and quantitative approach, this study examines a textual and numerical database about professionals who provide palliative care assistance in Rio de Janeiro. Out of the existing palliative care services analyzed, fourteen were evaluated, twelve of which were located in the RJ metropolitan region. The majority of professionals worked with private funding within hospitals. The PC teams were most commonly composed of physicians, with only 17.1% of the professionals having formal PC training. Palliative Care services in Rio de Janeiro seem to follow a similar pattern to Brazil and Latin America. However, the characteristics of this pattern may not adequately address the significant needs of middle-income countries.