Background:

cancer is one of the main causes of morbidity and the first cause of mortality in the world, between 30% and 40% of diagnosed patients are cured; the rest will inevitably go through advanced and terminal stages, they will need palliative care.

Objective:

to design a professional improvement course for General Practitioners, through which they acquire the knowledge and skills required to provide palliative care to cancer patients.

Methods:

an investigation based on the dialectical-materialist method, with a qualitative approach, was carried out at the “XX Aniversario” University Polyclinic, from September 2019 to March 2020. Theoretical methods were used: analysis-synthesis and induction-deduction; empirical ones: documentary analysis of contents related to palliative care in undergraduate and postgraduate studies of Medicine and a questionnaire for doctors to self-assess their deficiencies; and the mathematical-statistical ones for the absolute and relative values.

Results:

the professionals sampled self-evaluated as average their general knowledge about palliative care to patients with cancer, most did not feel qualified to offer them, while others recognized insufficient improvement courses, so a course composed of nine topics was designed, with their objectives, contents and assessment forms, which was valued by specialist criteria.

Conclusions:

the designed training course was valued as very adequate in its aspects: relevance, affordability and scientific-methodological treatment of its topics.

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