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Managing the end of life in COVID patients. The role of palliative care in emergency departments during the pandemic

Managing COVID-19 patients has been an extremely difficult and dramatic task, especially for emergency departments during the strongest waves of the pandemic in Italy. Medical staff and health professionals were redeployed from their work setting to COVID units; many were overwhelmed by the deaths o...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Sena, Barbara, De Luca, Enrico
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9683334/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36439078
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1039003
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author Sena, Barbara
De Luca, Enrico
author_facet Sena, Barbara
De Luca, Enrico
author_sort Sena, Barbara
collection PubMed
description Managing COVID-19 patients has been an extremely difficult and dramatic task, especially for emergency departments during the strongest waves of the pandemic in Italy. Medical staff and health professionals were redeployed from their work setting to COVID units; many were overwhelmed by the deaths of so many patients in a very short time. This work aimed to explore palliative care health professionals' and physicians' perceptions of end-of-life care management in COVID units during the first two waves of the pandemic in Italy. Qualitative data was collected through 24 semi-structured in-depth interviews. The participants were palliative care medical and health professionals redeployed, or in a supporting role, COVID units from the most affected areas of northern and central Italy. The interview questions were focused on four thematic areas concerning different aspects of the role and responsibilities of the palliative care specialist (physician and healthcare professional). A brief presentation of the main sociological literature on end-of-life management in hospital contexts will be firstly presented and discussed to offer a theoretical frame. Subsequently, some of the most significant results that emerged from our research will be illustrated concerning the role played by palliative care professionals during the pandemic and the relevance of the palliative care approach in emergency contexts.
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spelling pubmed-96833342022-11-24 Managing the end of life in COVID patients. The role of palliative care in emergency departments during the pandemic Sena, Barbara De Luca, Enrico Front Sociol Sociology Managing COVID-19 patients has been an extremely difficult and dramatic task, especially for emergency departments during the strongest waves of the pandemic in Italy. Medical staff and health professionals were redeployed from their work setting to COVID units; many were overwhelmed by the deaths of so many patients in a very short time. This work aimed to explore palliative care health professionals' and physicians' perceptions of end-of-life care management in COVID units during the first two waves of the pandemic in Italy. Qualitative data was collected through 24 semi-structured in-depth interviews. The participants were palliative care medical and health professionals redeployed, or in a supporting role, COVID units from the most affected areas of northern and central Italy. The interview questions were focused on four thematic areas concerning different aspects of the role and responsibilities of the palliative care specialist (physician and healthcare professional). A brief presentation of the main sociological literature on end-of-life management in hospital contexts will be firstly presented and discussed to offer a theoretical frame. Subsequently, some of the most significant results that emerged from our research will be illustrated concerning the role played by palliative care professionals during the pandemic and the relevance of the palliative care approach in emergency contexts. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-11-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9683334/ /pubmed/36439078 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1039003 Text en Copyright © 2022 Sena and De Luca. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Sociology
Sena, Barbara
De Luca, Enrico
Managing the end of life in COVID patients. The role of palliative care in emergency departments during the pandemic
title Managing the end of life in COVID patients. The role of palliative care in emergency departments during the pandemic
title_full Managing the end of life in COVID patients. The role of palliative care in emergency departments during the pandemic
title_fullStr Managing the end of life in COVID patients. The role of palliative care in emergency departments during the pandemic
title_full_unstemmed Managing the end of life in COVID patients. The role of palliative care in emergency departments during the pandemic
title_short Managing the end of life in COVID patients. The role of palliative care in emergency departments during the pandemic
title_sort managing the end of life in covid patients. the role of palliative care in emergency departments during the pandemic
topic Sociology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9683334/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36439078
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.1039003
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