Spanish and Portuguese Societies of Internal Medicine consensus guideline about best practice in end-of-life care

To develop consensus recommendations about good clinical practice rules for caring end-of-life patients.

A steering committee of 12 Spanish and Portuguese experts proposed 37 recommendations. A two rounds Delphi method was performed, with participation of 105 panelists including internists, other clinicians, nurses, patients, lawyers, bioethicians, health managers, politicians and journalists. We sent a questionnaire with 5 Likert-type answers for each recommendation. Strong consensus was defined when >95% answers were completely agree or >90% were agree or completely agree; and weak consensus when >90% answers were completely agree or >80% were agree or completely agree.

The panel addressed 7 specific areas for 37 recommendations spanning: identification of patients; knowledge of the disease, values and preferences of the patient; information; patient's needs; support and care; palliative sedation, and after death care.

The panel formulated and provided the rationale for recommendations on good clinical practice rules for caring end-of-life patients.

Published by Revista clinica espanola, 2021. The guideline itself is at the source linked here.

doi.org/10.1016/j.rceng.2020.04.009