Intervención del trabajo social en tanatología y el afrontamiento ante un diagnóstico de cáncer

Abstract

Over the last years, social work has been evolving its arrangement of intervention. The development of the subject of social work and thanatology is lately initiated by the attempt to understand the processes of grief and coping in people with a cancer diagnosis and a palliative diagnosis, more unequivocally, in the terminal phases. The current study offers a concise overview of the essential results of thanatology, considering the changes that have been occurring due to social advances. Consequently, the following aspects are also scrutinized: Managing with a diagnosis of cancer, dying as a process, the stages of grief in the face of health loss, the accompaniment of dying, and death. Eventually, the usefulness of social work intervention in a thanatological procedure is defended. The study presents an exploratory and descriptive level since it is a theme that has not been worked on in detail before. Furthermore, it manages to provide possible answers to the questions of the influence of social work in thanatology and coping with a diagnosis of cancer. The population implicated was twenty-five patients who presented the characteristics for the research. The objective of the current investigation is to determine the influence of the social worker in coping with a diagnosis of cancer. The information was collected using the EFD66 scale in which the phase of grief of each patient was pinpointed. On the other hand, life stories allowed contrasting the dissimilar life histories of the patients; finally, it was possible to characterize that patient require accompaniment from the initial phase to the final phase of the diagnosis. Based on the information collected, it is recommended to implement the intervention strategies of thanatology from social work for faring with the diagnosis of cancer and palliative diagnosis.