Psychosocial Care for End of Life Patients – Social Work Perspective

Introduction: For cancer patients, comfort care is essential at the end of life. It is care that helps or sooths a person who is dying. The social worker tries to prevent or relieves suffering as much as possible while respecting the dying person’s wishes. The social workers routinely elicit the symptoms history, painful affects, faced difficulties because of disease, and psychosocial ways of coping. They work in multidisciplinary team at individual level, system (family) level to create balance and hope with compassion. Further dying is relational event. However, social workers who provide end-of-life care do not see always themselves as clinicians. They work with dying, often stand in the most intimate spaces, and therefore use themselves inter subjectively. This work requires considerable courage and Self care.

Summary and Conclusion: This paper aims to highlight the social work at the end of life care in terms of utilization of self, the essentials required to provide the best individual psychosocial care, family care and ethics to be followed while working with the dying patients. It also focuses the professional self care to be followed and the limits of social work education at the end of life care.