Who is it for?
In general, all children and their families affected by chronic illness who request a psychological attention, both at the consultation or counseling and therapeutic levels, and also to those children that the pediatrician considers to be in a psychological risk situation or present problems of adherence to treatment or therapeutic link, prior assessment with the family of the appropriateness of the resource for them.
Beyond medical treatment
Illness, decline and death are universal experiences that put individuals and their families in the face of one of the greatest challenges in life. The effect of a diagnosis of cancer or cohabitation with a seriously ill person is felt throughout the family system - all family members are affected by inevitable emotional and cognitive disorders.
When the patient is a child, the crisis in the family is even more intense as it forces him to reconcile his life cycle (altered by illness), the individual life cycle of his members and the life cycle of the disease itself (acute, chronic or terminal).
It is currently estimated that 20% of children are immersed in chronic disease processes. Medical treatment of chronic diseases is a necessary condition, but not enough to achieve the patient's well-being, as there are other factors that influence the development and coping of a chronic illness. On the other hand, whether we are dealing with chronic or acute illness, there are disorders or symptoms without a clear organic basis that suggest a clear influence of psychosocial factors.
Currently available medical treatments allow for a normal life, but despite this, large numbers of sick children still have serious problems with social integration and psychological adjustment, in many cases without premorbid risk aspects. . Others present only at certain stages of their evolutionary cycle. Children who coexisted easily with childhood illness begin to experience adolescence. The child is in control of his illness but the rest of his life is compromised.
How can we help these patients?
The Paediatrics Team of the Parc Taulí Health Corporation is fully aware of the need to look at the sick child comprehensively, including the aspects discussed so far. That is why you ask the support, advice and intervention of an expert to approach it.
The project proposes a family-centered biopsychosocial intervention model as a central unit of care, emphasizing the patient's resources to deal with the disease, and the resources that systemic guidance and counseling offer, both for direct patient care and communication within the teams that are in contact with him.
The family as a central unit of care
As a starting point, we need to consider the family or the caregiver system (family unit health agent) and not the sick person or child as the central unit of care. The needs of all family members regarding the impact of organic disease need to be addressed.
This premise, taking into account the absolute dependence of the child on his family environment, allows us to adapt to reality successfully, based mainly on discovering and strengthening the strengths of the family, without forgetting, however, his more vulnerable aspects. Preventive, care and therapeutic interventions that recognize the importance of pain for all family members prevent them from being marginalized and mobilize their potential as a powerful tool in the treatment process.
Systemic family orientation
It is useful for intervention in these cases, to the extent that it gives references to understand and act on the individual in relation to his environment, and not on the individual in isolation. It therefore considers the human being as a being in relation and, consequently, the difficulties that he may have when facing his life challenges as difficulties of relationship.
It provides a circular look at the patient's reactions, which are explained not so much by his personality, pathological or healthy, as by the role that he can play in the place that he occupies in a given system.
In our case, we mean both the extended family system to which it belongs and the system resulting from the interaction with the care team during the treatment, which in the case of chronic diseases can be as long as they go through the various stages of the life cycle of both the child and the family. Based on General Systems Theory, we can recognize the laws that govern the behavior of individuals as a group and explain and enhance their relationships through communication, as this is the one that regulates information within systems.