SERVIÇO SOCIAL E CUIDADOS PALIATIVOS: atuação profissional a partir de trabalhos acadêmicos

Abstract

The present work has as its theme the Social Work and the Brazilian Public Health Policy and object the performance of the social worker in palliative care. According to the World Health Organization - WHO (2002), "Palliative Care consists of assistance provided by a multidisciplinary team, which aims to improve the quality of life of patients and their families, in the face of a lifethreatening illness, through prevention and relief of suffering, early identification, impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other physical, social, psychological and spiritual symptoms”. In this sense, the general objective of this work was to understand how the Social Worker works in the palliative care policy. Specifically, to analyze health policy in Brazil and palliative care as a public policy; discuss palliative care; and, finally, understanding the professional difficulties and challenges. The research was of paramount importance for enabling the expansion of knowledge on a subject that is not so debated in professional training, but which is of great relevance to think about the performance of social workers with users and their respective families, through a multidisciplinary team. The study methodology was a systematic and integrative bibliographic review, in order to understand how, in the production of knowledge, the work of social workers in palliative care has been characterized in relation to their action, their difficulties and their challenges. For that, we used two databases, the Institutional Repository of the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB) and Google Scholar, selecting academic works through two associated keywords, “Social Service” and “Palliative Care”. The inclusion criterion was to be a bibliographic and/or documental study with field work or experience report. The time frame was from 2016 to 2023, as it is a subject that is still recent, with insufficient academic work found in years prior to the chosen ones. The results of the study indicated the following aspects: the social worker works in a multidisciplinary palliative care team; its action can enable access to assistance and social security rights; he has the ability to identify the multiple expressions of the social question, through knowledge, investigation and analysis of the reality experienced by patients and family members; Dialogue between family members and the multidisciplinary team plays a fundamental role, as well as the sharing of information that materializes through guidance and referrals; its greatest difficulty is that users do not have access to social rights in other social policies; and the challenge is to overcome conservatism while maintaining the commitment of its performance linked to the Political Ethical Project of Social Work. In terms of a final consideration, we conclude that the social worker works in palliative care through a multidisciplinary team, having as its main competence the availability of information for access to social rights, with emphasis on Social Security and Social Assistance Policies, since the understanding of the expressions of the social issue that pervade the lives of users and their families, the use of technicaloperative instruments and ethical-political commitment make the profession relevant, justify and legitimize in this area.