Intervention in the family of patient facing high death risk

Abstract

Nowadays, Bone Marrow Transplantation (BMT) is an effective alternative for treating various hematological and imunological diseases, when conventional treatments do not offer any good prognosis. These diseases can be fatal, and their diagnosis exerts a psychological impact on patients as well as their family structure. At that moment, the family faces the loss of “normal” life as it was perceived and lived before the diagnosis, and finds itself obliged to face the destruction of the common myth that lethal diseases only happen to other people. Furthermore, the transplantation implies serious risks for the patients’ physical integrity, exposing their sense of autonomy and personal control. The imminence of death is an omnipresent threat that also affects the family, due to the obvious possibility of losing a loved one. In an attempt to help these family members, some psychological intervention modes were implanted at the BMT unit of the University of São Paulo at Ribeirão Preto Medical School Hospital das Clínicas, including: family meetings, individual sessions and psychological support groups. The obtained results have demonstrated the importance the beneficiaries and professional team members attach to the strategy of offering psychological support to family members, as a complement to the psychosocial interventions that are directly oriented towards the patient’s emotional well-being. The experience accumulated through years of care has corroborated literature data, which point towards the need to offer interventions to family members at different stages of treatment.