Portugal's History of Psycho-Oncology

Abstract

The psycho-oncology represents an interface between psychology and oncology. In Portugal, the creation of Psycho-oncology was due to the collaboration between oncologists with psychiatrists and psychologists. This partnership led to the creation of first Portuguese research works in Psycho-oncology, contributing to the enrichment of this discipline.

Objective

Describe the history of psycho-oncology in Portugal. Research articles and theses related to Psycho-oncology in Portugal and do his description statistics.

Material and methods

Literature review of articles and theses on Psycho-oncology made in Portugal, using the following search engines: “Pubmed”, “Medline”, “ScieloPortugal” and scientific repositories of Portuguese universities.

Results

Until 1997, psycho-oncology did not arouse the interest of researchers; however, since then, the Psycho-oncology has grown exponentially, with regard to the investigation. There was a period of increase in publications between 2005 and 2012 as well as, increase in the number of undergraduate theses, master's and doctorate. Disclosure of publications within the Psycho-oncology lies spread by various magazines in different specialties, demonstrating that this area arouses the interest not only of psychiatrists and psychologists, but also of other health professionals.

Conclusion

Despite growing research in Psycho-oncology and growing interest among clinicians and researchers, there is still some shortcomings, warning that the psychological support is also scarce in some Portuguese institutions.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.