The scenario of scientific publication on palliative care in oncology over the last 5 years: a scoping review

Abstract

Objective To identify the profile of studies published on palliative care in oncology and to analyze their levels of evidence. Method A scoping review. Inclusion criteria published in the last 5 years, in English, Portuguese or Spanish. Exclusion criteria incomplete articles, paid for, or those without results. Results The search resulted in 42,650 publications, where 341 remained after four selection steps. The largest number of publications was in 2015, with 32.55% of the total; 83% were classified as Recommendation Grade B, and 52% with Level of Evidence 2B. Uniprofessional production was more frequent with 67.74% of the publications; physicians were the authors in 93.26%, and nurses in 25.22% of the total articles. Conclusion There are several articles on the subject, however they have low scientific evidence. Most of the production is uniprofessional, and nurses are the main authors of multiprofessional publications. A brief overview of the scientific publication on palliative care in oncology was performed, from which we can recommend integration among professionals for producing multiprofessional studies with better quality of scientific evidence to direct and improve healthcare.