Portuguese Patient Dignity Question: A cross-sectional study of palliative patients cared for in primary care

The Patient Dignity Question (PDQ) is a clinical tool developed with the aim of reinforcing the sense of personhood and dignity, enabling health care providers (HCPs) to see patients as people and not solely based on their illness.

To study the acceptability and feasibility of the Portuguese version of the PDQ (PDQ-PT) in a sample of palliative care patients cared for in primary care (PC).

A cross-sectional study using 20 palliative patients cared for in a PC unit. A post-PDQ satisfaction questionnaire was developed.

Twenty participants were included, 75% were male; average age was 70 years old. Patients found the summary accurate, precise, and complete; all said that they would recommend the PDQ to others and want a copy of the summary placed on their family physician's medical chart. They felt the summary heightened their sense of dignity, considered it important that HCPs have access to the summary and indicated that this information could affect the way HCPs see and care for them. The PDQ-PT's took 7 min on average to answer, and 10 min to complete the summary.

The PDQ-PT is well accepted and feasible to use with palliative patients in the context of PC and seems to be a promising tool to be implemented. Future trials are now warranted.