Collaborative Strategies between Health Staff and Social Work to Promote Addiction Treatment and Patient Education

Abstract

Introduction: The soil of drug use addiction is paved with difficulties and sufferings, linked to diverse subjects and social context issues, steadily rising. The health and human services network has been experiencing many difficulties in reaching treatment demands in an effective and humanized way due to fragilities originating from public policies and past institutional divisions that cause vulnerabilities in confronting addiction problems. The scarcity and non-distribution of resources and services in the territory aggravate the transitive situations and, in a certain manner, make these services almost the only existing ones responsible for the accumulation of diverse demand axes, situated mainly in the areas of education, health, citizens' rights, and social inclusion.
There is an insufficient conceptual field in the literature about the integrative exercises between the health sector and the area of social work intended to cope with the complexity of the problems systematically found in the "new drug user corporality." In these situations, pressure on health staff and the secondary physical and moral suffering of those who seek treatment, as well as the desire for specialization to accumulate a greater number of professional and technical apparatus, raise the level of challenge of health knowledge. Therefore, integrative care interests in the field of drug use should be an important alternative in those health and social knowledge production scenarios.
Methods: Introduction: Substance abuse is a problem that affects more than 4% of people in the world and contributes to anorexia, disorder, tumor, hypertension, hepatic disorder, heart, and troubled disorder. Spain is a country facing life-threatening issues with significant costs caused by the obsession with various narcotic substances. In this case, health professionals, particularly social workers and addiction treatment specialists, have a prominent role to play by carrying out early research, linking up with key influencers in the person's context, and planning to address the many barriers in the world of drugs and psychoactive substances. This educational research presents findings from a Delphi analysis on collaborative strategies to carry out joint actions between health staff, social work, and the third sector to promote the treatment of addictions and the context of the people who use drugs.
Method: This research is a qualitative study using the Delphi method, including a convenience sample of 41 participants. The Delphi method combines empirical data and expert judgment to reach consensus. It has been successful in social and health sciences since the 1960s. The results show that discrimination can impact personal and professional development. Addiction treatments and patient education are influenced by social, educational, and media guidelines, affecting decision-making and professional risk.
Conclusion: We are convinced and committed to the development of interdisciplinary work among professional groups who are commonly part of the treatment for people with drug use problems. We are regulated by different principles or aesthetics in patient care, but all of our actions are aimed at the welfare of people who have suffered from the disease called addiction. We are all looking for ways to help them and make life more bearable for them, understanding that we each contribute from our professional competence and that none of us has or should have the truth about the problems that affect people. The alternative we propose may not solve the complexities of teamwork, make conflicts and relationships disappear, or purify work. They advocate an enrichment of the person-centered focus of the professionals with both a social and relational approach, taking interest in identifying with the biographical perspective. Furthermore, a therapeutic person focus is proposed, highlighted by the therapeutic alliance and egalitarianism, by interest in motivational work, in therapeutic support and empowerment. The consensus of governance and its later use within work teams will allow them a new reading and understanding of the cases cared for from an integrated approach. The most interesting way to work is to seek contact with other colleagues to achieve a transversal and integrated action, as without all the members of our team, we have no doubts that we will need the support and collaboration of the team's psychiatrist, lawyer, nurses, educators, and social workers, in order to meet the needs of our patients.