Decision Making With Bioethical Perspective in Palliative Care en Mexico

Overview

All clinical practice includes decision making, and sometimes you are ethically challenging because of the consequences it will bring to the patient, the health professional or society in general. Ethics seeks the best solution to a better treatment and seeks to increase the quality of life of the patient with correct decision making. Ethical / bioethical considerations are of a generic nature, and do not apply to specific situations. Therefore, it is suggested that there should be guidelines or recommendations in the field of palliative care in Mexico that may be an adjunct to decision making. The relevance of knowledge, application and management of ethical / bioethical recommendations is unknown as part of decision-making by professionals dedicated to palliative care in our country, taking into consideration the principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-malfeasance and Justice. It is necessary to consider the participation of patients, caregivers and health personnel in this decision making process of decisions. This study intends to identify the current situation of this issue in Mexico. To analyze the characteristics of decision-making with bioethical involvement in palliative care in a representative sample of care professionals in some regions of the country. Quantitative method: * Describe the current situation in decision-making with bioethical involvement in palliative care. * Identify if the personnel dedicated to palliative care know guidelines or recommendations related to decision-making in palliative care and the current legal framework. * Know the strategies that palliative care personnel follow in situations in which the decision to make is difficult or problematic. Qualitative method: * Know the particular situations that signify a conflict or situation with bioethical implications for health professionals in palliative care. * Analyze the variables that influence decision-making around the application of bioethics in palliative care.

Mixed study, for the quantitative part, it was prospective, descriptive, and cross-sectional investigation; on the qualitative part it was a case study. A sample of 72 health professionals was considered for the quantitative part and 8 for the qualitative part. The sampling strategy was for convenience. Data collection was achieved through a semi-structured survey applied in a virtual environment with the Google Forms platform. The quantitative data analysis was with descriptive measures of central tendency using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 21® (SPSS) software, and the qualitative ones with thematic content analysis techinique through the Qualitative Data Analysis Atlas Ti version 6.0® software. Informed consent was obtained from the participants for the use of the data.