Palliative care, impact of cognitive behavioral therapy to cancer patients

It has not been possible to control the advance of oncological diseases in developing countries, few are early detected and most of them go through debilitating treatments that at the end of the disease refers patients to the palliative care area. Nowadays, that is the place where most of the psychologist work. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of psychological intervention to patients at palliative care unit (National Cancer Institute Mexico). The analysis was performed with a sample collected in the period 2011-2013, integrated of 2472 patients; taking into account their diagnosis and the hospital area where they came from. It was found that the intervention of psychologists in the area of palliative care is limited, very short and late effectiveness. Patients who went to psychological consultation, 90% no longer presented to the fourth session and about 30% comes from the area of pre consultation with advanced stages of the disease. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a health tool that could benefit cancer patients, if that intervention was regulated throughout the entire treatment and not just by the end of it, as a support to patients. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.