Psychological service in a bone marrow transplantation unit

Abstract

Bone marrow transplantation (BMT) represents an therapeutic alternative applied for the treatment of hematological malignancies as well as certain solid tumors and immunology disorders, when the conventional forms of treatment are not good choice. It is a complex procedure,both in the physical and psychological sense, and the need of a psychological intervention for the patient and families has been recognized by several authors in the literature. According to the  literature, the relevance of the psychological counseling exceeds the period of ospitalization including the pre-BMT and pos-BMT. More attention have to be dedicated to the families in this process. Considering these principles, a psychological support service was carried out in a large teaching hospital in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil (Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto) in order to provide support both for the patients and their families. The present study aims to describe the structure of this service, as well as to present some main datas obtained from some studies that investigated issues of avaliation, designed to assess the effectivity of some implemented psychological interventions before, during and after BMT. The results confirm available data in literature that underline the relevance of the pre-TMO intervention to the patient who had undergone a bone marrow transplantation, counseling and psychological support during the differents phases of the hospitalization and psychological support to the families.