Palliative care for dogs and cats in France: A qualitative and descriptive study based on professionals of the field - 16/11/23
Highlights |
• | Palliative care in companion animal is a recent medical field that is slow to be implemented, despite a common opinion of interviewed veterinarians that it may be very relevant in practice and that a lot of medical conditions may benefit from it. |
• | Palliative care for dogs and cats includes not only medical care for the patient, but also some support for its owners, with its emphasis on the quality of life of the pet. PC care belongs to ethics of care approach to end-of-life issues. |
• | Appropriate drugs, technologies, scientific knowledge in medicine and ethology are available that would permit the development of pet palliative care in France. Nevertheless, financial and organizational constraints exist that may explain the slow development of veterinary palliative care. |
Summary |
Background |
Little academic research has been done on palliative care for dogs and cats in France. However, palliative care (PC) is often practiced in veterinary hospitals without naming it precisely, providing great opportunities for the management of pets’ life-threatening diseases.
Method |
In order to assess how pet end-of-life support is performed and PC could alleviate associated ethical dilemmas, we performed a qualitative study by interviewing two human PC professionals and nine veterinarians who often deal with pet end-of-life. After these interviews, we also made a comparison with existing literature, which mainly consists on experience sharing.
Results |
Globally, the interviewed veterinarians define palliative care for dogs and cats as the support of a dog or a cat with a life-threatening disease intended to treat clinical symptoms, pain and suffering without curing the patient, giving its quality of life a high priority. It can be done at any stage of the disease. Support should also be provided to the pet's owners, always with emphasis on the quality of life of the animal. All veterinary interviewees, as opposed to human medicine professionals, overlooked the support to the veterinary team included in a structured PC approach. Such a platform should include both in clinics and ambulatory care in order for the severely ill pet to stay as much as possible in a familiar environment. This also requires render to owner competent in pet nursing.
Conclusion |
This preliminary work tends to show the relevance of the ethics of care approach structured PC would provide to pets. Support from professionals such as veterinary nurses is mandatory.
Le texte complet de cet article est disponible en PDF.Keywords : Palliative care, Animal, Veterinary medicine, Pet, Medical ethics
Plan
Vol 31
Article 100953- décembre 2023 Retour au numéroBienvenue sur EM-consulte, la référence des professionnels de santé.
L’accès au texte intégral de cet article nécessite un abonnement.
Déjà abonné à cette revue ?