Palliative Care in the Conditions of New Social Challenges: Problems and Prospects

Abstract

Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine, which turned into a full-scale military conflict in February 2022, created serious problems for the entire system of social assistance in Ukraine in general and specialized services providing palliative care, in particular. Significant social problems arose when implementing a comprehensive approach to patient and family care under martial law.

This review aims to summarize the existing positive practices of providing palliative care in conditions of new social challenges and to highlight the main directions of social support in palliative care in conditions of martial law.

The publication provides an overview of modern scientific research and various practices of providing social support abroad, which are provided in the conditions of specialized medical institutions and social institutions that provide palliative care in the conditions of modern social challenges (the COVID-19 pandemic, conditions of social distancing, etc.). Prospective practices in the provision of palliative care using community resources have been identified. The domestic experience of providing social rehabilitation services is analyzed, and the main directions of social support services provided to clients within the social service of palliative care in the Kharkiv Regional Charitable Fund “Social Assistance Service” under martial law are given.

To identify problematic issues and improve the quality of palliative care social service provision, a survey of recipients of the relevant social service was conducted regarding the level of life satisfaction as an important prerequisite for the psychosocial state of clients and client satisfaction with the level of palliative care service provision as a promising way to improve further work with clients, focused on their needs. Data on the processing of the survey results using the methods of statistical evaluation of the central tendency of the sample and correlation analysis are given. Based on the analysis and generalization of the research results, the main ways to improve the social service of palliative care for the elderly in the conditions of martial law and promising directions of research are determined.