[Experience in psychosocial management of cancer patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation]

Psychosocial care of cancer patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation. During the last years bone marrow transplantation (BMT) has emerged as a treatment of choice especially for cancer diseases of the haemopoietic system as well as for certain solid tumours. BMT is a very invasive treatment with high dose chemotherapy and total body irradiation, which is accompanied by special psychosocial strains for the patient. Therefore psychosocial care during the acute treatment is needed. In this paper a psychosocial liaison service in a BMT unit as part of a comprehensive psychosocial care on different oncology wards of an acute clinic is presented. Based on a systematic clinical documentation of the psychosocial interventions the practice and problems of the psychosocial care are described. Apart of common problems of psychosocial liaison services known from the literature the experiences show special demands reflecting the special environment of the treatment setting. These problems are discussed with regard to the different target groups (patients, relatives, medical staff). Following the reported experiences some proposals concerning structure and integration of psychosocial care in an BMT unit are given.