CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

PurposeThe integration of psychosocial care in the routine care of cancer patients has been set as an internationalstandard, but there are healthcare contexts where these services are lacking as psychosocial care providers arenot incorporated in multidisciplinary teams and screening for psychological distress is not carried out routinelyor systematically.MethodIn this article, we discuss the findings from an ethnographic study that focused on exploring the workingexperiences of psychosocial care providers from one children´s hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The studyis based on 10 in-depth interviews with hospital staff members and participant observation in selected hospitalareas. The transcripts from the interviews and fieldnotes from the observations were analyzed using thematicanalysis.ResultsWe found that psychosocial care providers encounter difficulties while attempting to deliver services tochildren and their families, produced mainly by their lack of collaboration with other professional groups, insufficienthuman resources, and a growing patient population. As a result of this situation, psychosocial careproviders often prioritize some patients over others, leaving a considerable number of patients and familymembers without psychosocial support.ConclusionsThe study highlighted the barriers psychosocial care providers encounter while attempting to deliver servicesto children and their families. Further work needs to be carried out to fully integrate psychosocial carein national health policies and ensure this type of support is available for all patients and their families.

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