Guidelines for the humanization of care provided by the multidisciplinary team in the adult emergency department

Abstract

Introduction

Portugal ranks among the leaders in the OECD for access to emergency services, where users require immediate, efficient, and highly technology- and staff-intensive care. Multidisciplinary team professionals deliver care in a routine, high-pressure therapeutic environment that generates suffering and increases the vulnerability of care recipients. Humanism regards human dignity as the highest value of life; when applied to health, its principles call for realigning care goals beyond the biomedical perspective — a process we term “humanization of care.”

Objective

To define guidelines for providing humanized care in the emergency department through an integrative review of the literature; and to validate the content of those guidelines for emergency department practice using a panel of experts and the Delphi methodology.

Methods

A simple descriptive observational study. For content validation of the 170 items composing the guidelines, 20 health professionals with advanced training participated. The 170 items were identified through an integrative review and organized into three levels: structural, professional, and care. The ethics committee approved the study.

Results

After drafting the guidelines via an integrative literature review, a panel of experts was convened, and two Delphi rounds were conducted to validate the content. Of the 170 items initially evaluated, 167 were confirmed as valid after the second round. I-CVI values ranged from 0.85 to 1.00, and S-CVI values ranged from 0.90 to 0.98.

Conclusion

Caring for others while feeling valued — by combining technical and scientific competence with empathy and active listening — is the path toward a future in which health professionals can make small but meaningful changes in the lives of care recipients, “making them human.”