An ethnographic exploration of the delivery of psychosocial care to children with cancer in Argentina

Abstract

Purpose: The integration of psychosocial care in the routine care of cancer patients has been set as aninternational standard, but there are healthcare contexts where these services are lacking as psychosocialcare providers are not incorporated in multidisciplinary teams and screening for psychological distress isnot carried out routinely or systematically. Method: In this article, we discuss thefindings from an ethnographic study that focused on exploring theworking experiences of psychosocial care providers from one children's hospital in Buenos Aires,Argentina. The study is based on 10 in-depth interviews with hospital staff members and participantobservation in selected hospital areas. The transcripts from the interviews andfieldnotes from the ob-servations were analyzed using thematic analysis. Results: We found that psychosocial care providers encounter difficulties while attempting to deliverservices to children and their families, produced mainly by their lack of collaboration with other pro-fessional groups, insufficient human resources, and a growing patient population. As a result of thissituation, psychosocial care providers often prioritize some patients over others, leaving a considerablenumber of patients and family members without psychosocial support. Conclusions: The study highlighted the barriers psychosocial care providers encounter while attemptingto deliver services to children and their families. Further work needs to be carried out to fully integratepsychosocial care in national health policies and ensure this type of support is available for all patientsand their families.