Abstract

PLAZA-CARMONA, María  and  REQUENA-HERNANDEZ, Carmen. Using the prosocial communication in health and social mediators with elderly: a pilot study. Gerokomos [online]. 2016, vol.27, n.1, pp.13-18. ISSN 1134-928X.

Social and sanitary professionals are overwhelmed by the growing demand of services. This fact calls for the creation of terapeutical formulas promoting the active implication of users with their own health. Objective: Observe the level of prosocial communication among social and health professionals while interacting with seniors in either medical consultation or leisure supervision. Metodology: 4 observers have assessed the prosociability of 20 social and sanitary professionals. The evaluation tool was the Test of Best Practices for Prosocial Communication, designed and developed by our own research team. It includes 9 factors related to prosocial competence and 22 items related to specific behaviours and attitudes. Results: The sanitary centers and professionals exhibit higher prosocial scores. While sanitary centers take care of users on a personal basis, social centers handle users on a groupal basis. Conclusions: More research is required on strategies to incorporate prosocial conducts under groupal attention. The study manifests that more training is needed on prosocial competence in order to aminorate the expert role, which is dominant among professionals in this study.

Keywords : prosociability; professional; communication; aging dialogue.

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