[Palliative care support teams and the commitment of primary care teams to terminally ill patients in their homes].

OBJECTIVE: To find out if the activity of palliative care support teams (PCST) does not negatively influences the performance of the primary care "care of terminally ill patients" service.

PARTICIPANTS: Terminally ill patients cared for at home.

DESIGN: Multicentre observational study.

MAIN MEASUREMENTS: The observed variable is the increase in the number of registered patients in primary care, and the number of patients covered between the years 2002 and 2003 and the 4 intervention variables are: total visits, joint visits, assessments, and teaching sessions.

RESULTS: The number of patients covered in 2002 was 41.19%, increasing to 45.44% in 2003. The activity rate of the PCST for each 100 000 inhabitants was 526 home visits in 2003, 86.15 joint visits, 313.68 professional assessments, and 23.14 teaching sessions. The joint visits and the teaching sessions were strongly associated with an improvement in the coverage of primary care (Pearson correlation of 0.784 and 0.759, respectively). The total visits were moderately associated (0.525) and the assessments were weakly associated (0.245).

CONCLUSIONS: Joint visits and teaching sessions of a PCST are associated to an increase in the activity of primary care teams. Assessments and total visits did not have a negative influence.