Page 216 - Psychology of Wounds and Wound Care in Clinical Practice ( PDFDrive )

Chapter 8

Family, Friends
and Social Support

Box 8.1: Key Points
• Social support can be defined as the emotional and
practical support that individuals provide to others
through their presence and behaviour;
• Social support has a significant impact on both mor-
tality and morbidly with a lack of support being det-
rimental to health;
• Improved concordance with treatment, supporting
healthy behaviours and providing emotional support
are all routes through which social support can posi-
tively impact on an individual’s health;
• There is evidence that wound healing can be pro-
moted by the presence of social support, potentially
through an improvement in concordance;

• A number of social support interventions can be imple-
mented which may result in improved psychological
well- being, concordance and potentially healing;
• Living with a person with a wound can bring with it
a number of significant consequences not least on
the individual’s health;

• Both the individual with the wound and their imme-
diate family may suffer psychologically and socially
because of the wound.

D. Upton, P. Upton, Psychology of Wounds and Wound Care 191
in Clinical Practice, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-09653-7_8,
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015