Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Corso di laurea in infermieristica - Sede di Modena

Abstract

This thesis investigates and studies in depth the topic of palliative care, because an increasing number of people die due to oncological or chronic – degenerative pathologies, requiring this kind of assistance. Despite this, “palliative culture” is still struggling to develop and many people don’t know what palliative care is and their right to benefit from it, like the law 38 of year 2010 declares. This happens due to the lack of several important means for the spread of this kind of assistance: information campaigns; tools and places for service delivery; suitable and formed staff for the scope. 
Nurses must have skills and emotional intelligence to assist the patient globally, because he will have a wide range of needs, in addition to physical ones: psychosocial, economic and spiritual. The quality of life and the dignity of the patient must be respected and guaranteed, because he will have the right to make decisions about his health until his death. The family of the patient will be another object of care, because it will also need assistance. 
Through a background question I found main keywords for the bibliographic research: nursing, palliative, care, terminal, patients, end – of – life. Then I’ve done a review of national and international literature and, referring to the guidelines developed by Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario, I put out the final synthesis.  This thesis is divided into three main chapters: the first is an in-depth analysis of the most important features of palliative care; the second clarifies the management of symptoms in the terminal patient and all the skills that the nurse has to possess and, in the end, the third chapter illustrates some realities for the delivery of palliative care in the provinces of Modena and Reggio Emilia.