Social work in health care
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The health care system is a complex and demanding environment requiring an acculturation process for all those who provide services under its aegis. Social workers new to a medical setting, are faced with difficulties relating to all aspects of their role: bureaucratic, professional and clinical. ⋯ A core group of 22 social workers participated in the program, and in the final session, the participants evaluated the course verbally and in an anonymous closed questionnaire. Feedback was mixed and included the participants dissatisfaction with the reduction of the experiential component of the sessions.
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This study of 124 parents of children diagnosed with cancer investigates parents' perceptions of their role in the illness situation. The study found that mothers and fathers differ in their experience of and response to parenting a child with cancer. ⋯ Sex-role socialization theory is discussed as an explanatory model of the parenting experience. Practice recommendations are offered to medical social workers and other health care professionals concerned about the long term psychosocial adjustment of parents with chronically ill children.
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Soc Work Health Care · Jan 1995
ReviewTreatment of adolescent substance abusers: issues for practice and research.
Treatment of adolescent substance abuse poses difficult challenges to social work practitioners. Effective intervention requires awareness of assessment and treatment approaches and knowledge of individual, peer, and family factors that contribute to alcohol or drug use. Social work's emphasis on contextual factors in the etiology and maintenance of addictive disorders is an important contribution to substance abuse treatment. ⋯ This paper discusses the prevalence of alcohol and drug use among adolescents in the United States. Assessment issues are identified and promising approaches to treating adolescents with substance use problems are noted. Implications for social work practice and research are delineated.
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This paper considers the stresses and satisfactions experienced by health care social workers as they help clients with grief and loss at a time of great fiscal restraint. Their clients face life-threatening illnesses such as AIDS and many forms of cancer. ⋯ As social workers confront struggles with death and bereavement, they may receive limited support to deal with these stresses in their work. The authors suggest administrative strategies both to help workers reduce stress and increase satisfactions and to demonstrate the value of social work services to dying and bereaved clients along a continuum of health care.