Question 1--Why are patients with co-occurring disorders particularly challenging to the medical team? How can the social worker help the team in understanding the patient? What approach can the social worker use to help lay a foundation for change in the patient?
According to the book, patients with co-occurring disorders particularly are challenging to the medical team. It is due to diverse reasons: first, co-occurring psychiatric or substance disorder has been seen together with medical illness. Second, a lack of services and resources for co-occurring treatment can interfere with the patient’s progress. Treating both disorders at the same time is often effective for co-occurring disorders because of the ways that these conditions interact with each other. If one disorder is left untreated, it can worsen and negatively affect any progress made to treat the other disorder.
In this sense, social workers are a fundamental part of the care of people who suffer from substance abuse. Social workers are responsible for the study of social, personal, and environmental factors and the identification of support networks and risk situations. Through the assessment, social workers try to
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This step should always precede the intervention itself because it is easier for those who are willing to change. It is important to know what motivational state the patient is in, to know if it is feasible to ask for a change in behavior or if he is still in an early phase. After finding motivational change, you should evaluate at what stage of the change model (pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance) the patient is found. These stages describe the patient's reality and help us to place ourselves in the patient's place and work from that