Academic Palliative Care Research in Portugal: Are We on the Right Track?

The narrow link between practice, education, and research is essential to palliative care development. In Portugal, academic postgraduate publications are the main booster for palliative care research.

This is a bibliometric study that aims to identify Portuguese palliative care postgraduate academic work published in electronic academic repositories between 2000 and 2015.

488 publications were identified. The number of publications has increased, especially in the last five years. The most frequently used method was quantitative, healthcare professionals were the most studied participants, and psychological and psychiatric aspects of care comprised the most current theme. Practice-based priorities are financial costs and benefits of palliative care, awareness and understanding of palliative care, underserved populations, best practices, communication, and palliative care in nonhospital settings.

The number of palliative care postgraduate academic publications has increased in Portugal in the past few years. There is academic production in the eight domains of quality palliative care and on the three levels of recommendation for practice-based research priorities. The major research gaps in Portugal are at the system and societal context levels.