A Study on Psycho Social, Emotional and Spiritual Needs of Caregivers in Home Care Settings

Social work in oncology settings are in a developing stage comparable to other branches of medicine such as psychiatry.Yet it is important and necessary for social workers to engage in this particular field and broadening the understanding of cancer clients various psycho social, financial, emotional and spiritual issues.Palliative care is a branch of medicine that generally deals with end of life or patients suffering from terminal illness such as severe heart problems, neurological disorders and cancer.This branch focuses on providing treatment that helps the patient to ease the pain and has the philosophy of "Quality of Death".In the western countries, social workers are an integral part in various palliative care settings and established procedures of working in the palliative care settings are laid down by National Association of Social Workers.In India palliative care was introduced very late and gained importance during 1990's and the involvement of social workers in palliative care in India is also very minimal.The researcher finds that due to the lack of literature on palliative care social work of India and particularly in the field of cancer is the reason that the practice of palliative care social work is minimal in oncology settings.There are many literatures addresses the psycho social and emotional issues of clients with cancer while undergoing the treatment and during the recovery process.Yet there are no literatures on caregiver focussed psycho social, emotional and spiritual issues.This study will be addressing the same and try to bring interventions from social work.This study will also act as a preliminary study in creating literature of palliative care social work with regards to cancer setting.