%0 Journal Article
%T Integrating Psychosocial Care Into Healthcare Systems: A Theory of Emotional Support, Social Connection, and Sustainable Patient-Centered Practice
%A James O'Leary
%A Aisling Dunne
%A Sean O'Brien
%J International Journal of Social and Psychological Aspects of Healthcare
%@ 3108-4818
%D 2026
%V 6
%N 2
%R 10.51847/GFP7w5aV5Q
%P 36-46
%X Psychosocial care is widely recognized as relevant to patient-centered healthcare, yet recognition does not reliably translate into timely, accessible, or sustained support. Existing approaches often fragment the problem into distress screening, communication skills, referral, social support, or specialist psychological intervention. This article develops a non-empirical theory in which psychosocial integration is instead understood as a health-system capability for recognizing contextually situated need, generating an appropriate relational and practical response, coordinating that response across professional and organizational boundaries, and reassessing need as circumstances change. Emotional needs, social connection, material constraints, patient preferences, digital access, and organizational capacity are treated as analytically distinct but interacting conditions. Screening is therefore positioned as one possible entry point rather than the endpoint of psychosocial care. The theory further distinguishes stepped intensity from stratified matching, emphasizing that support should respond not only to apparent symptom burden but also to complexity, preference, social conditions, prior response, and available resources. The proposed account does not assume that one care configuration is universally effective. Instead, it identifies response continuity, cross-level coordination, equity-sensitive access, and organizational sustainability as testable requirements for more durable psychosocial integration.
%U https://smerpub.com/article/integrating-psychosocial-care-into-healthcare-systems-a-theory-of-emotional-support-social-connect-07xa7izyaaumtf9