Introduction:

one of the frequent bioethical problems is the limitation of the therapeutic effort, the adequacy or the proportionality of the treatment to avoid obstinacy and futility.

Objective:

to evaluate the knowledge about the limitation of the therapeutic effort in doctors of a university hospital.

Method:

qualitative, evaluative-type research was carried out, using variables and qualitative techniques of information collection with the purpose of evaluating the knowledge about the capacity of the therapeutic physician and the doctors in the general university hospital Carlos Manuel de Céspedes of Bayamo, province Granma; in the period from April 1 to September 25, 2018.

Results:

124 medical professionals from the center were surveyed for (21.7%). The majority of the respondents (77%) knew the term limitation of the therapeutic effort. 24.2% of the respondents are not in favor of the application of said procedure. The validity of the construction of the escalation, classifies the respondents on the knowledge of the limitation of the therapeutic effort in appropriate ways.

Conclusions:

the application of the survey was useful to evaluate the level of knowledge of physicians on the limitation of therapeutic effort, demonstrating that there are important limitations.

        · resumen en Español     · texto en Español     · Español ( pdf )