Importance of Social Health Workers in a General Hospital
Chapter One
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
- To create awareness about how social workers work with patients and their families.
- To enlighten the public about how medical social workers assess the psycho-social functioning of patients and their families.
- To create awareness of how medical social workers counsel mental patients and their families. And how social workers help expand and strengthen the network of support to patients.
- To create awareness based on how social workers plan and conduct programmes to prevent substance abuse or improve health and counselling in the community.
- To educate the public about how medical social workers intervene as advocates for patients to resolve emergency problems.
- To create awareness, formulate or co-ordinate programmes plan for treatment, care and rehabilitation of patients based on social worker experience and knowledge.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Professional Social Work
Social work as a profession commonly is known in England about 110 years ago and is the benefactor and well-organized group of women to take shape. The ladies and gentlemen who are mainly women, who had excelled in their community, seeing the chaos and confusion of many of its citizens, mostly due to poverty, disease and aging in a busy hospital or home remedy poor were admitted to the idea fell and the good of the group and provide assistance to people who need it. Gradually, it became coherent organizational aspects of behavior and professional infrastructure established that nowadays a large and complex bureaucratic organization and must find any modern democratic society is considered (Samadi Rad, 2008). In 2007 the International Association of Social Workers has accepted the following definition of social work: “Professional social work, social change, problem solving in human relationships, empowerment and liberation of people to enhance well-being and promotes development. Using theories of human behavior and social systems, social work intervenes at the points where people interact with their environment is. Human rights and social justice are the principles and foundations of Social Work » (IFSW, 2000, cited in Wilson, Ruch, Lymbery & Cooper, 2008: 49). Social work has different aspects and includes a sophisticated analysis of the individual and the environment in human behavior (Hutchison, 2008). The following is an attempt to define the meaning and purpose of their integration in social work: “Social work is trying to get through to those who do not have the right to earn a living and help to achieve the highest degree of autonomy» (Crouch, 1979). Thus the material presented can be concluded that social work is the professional service or services or special activity that is based on specific knowledge and skills, the purpose of the assistance to individuals, groups or society in order to deal more effectively with the problems they are facing and thus to achieve personal independence and fulfillment of personal or social.
History of Social Work in Health Care System
Social workers from the twentieth century have been involved in health care system such as providing services for poor people, worked with the elderly and patients with tuberculosis. In 1977, the World Association of Social Work published standards for the provision of health care services in hospitals and in 1980, the standards for social workers in health centers developed and it replaced hospital standards. Between 1981 and 1982, the National Association of Social Work Board’s new developed standards approved and added to the previous standard of care. These standards include the activities of social workers in the field of kidney patient, disability, treatment and health care and followed by social workers into the health care system and the public and private sectors were engaged.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research design
The researcher used descriptive research survey design in building up this project work the choice of this research design was considered appropriate because of its advantages of identifying attributes of a large population from a group of individuals. The design was suitable for the study as the study sought Importance of social health workers in a general hospital
Sources of data collection
Data were collected from two main sources namely:
(i)Primary source and
(ii)Secondary source
Primary source:
These are materials of statistical investigation which were collected by the research for a particular purpose. They can be obtained through a survey, observation questionnaire or as experiment; the researcher has adopted the questionnaire method for this study.
Secondary source:
These are data from textbook Journal handset etc. they arise as byproducts of the same other purposes. Example administration, various other unpublished works and write ups were also used.
Population of the study
Population of a study is a group of persons or aggregate items, things the researcher is interested in getting information on Importance of social health workers in a general hospital. 200 staff of selected health centers in Benue state was selected randomly by the researcher as the population of the study.
CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION ANALYSIS INTERPRETATION OF DATA
Introduction
Efforts will be made at this stage to present, analyze and interpret the data collected during the field survey. This presentation will be based on the responses from the completed questionnaires. The result of this exercise will be summarized in tabular forms for easy references and analysis. It will also show answers to questions relating to the research questions for this research study. The researcher employed simple percentage in the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Introduction
It is important to ascertain that the objective of this study was to ascertain Importance of social health workers in a general hospital. In the preceding chapter, the relevant data collected for this study were presented, critically analyzed and appropriate interpretation given. In this chapter, certain recommendations made which in the opinion of the researcher will be of benefits in addressing the challenges of social health workers in a general hospital
Summary
This study was on Importance of social health workers in a general hospital. Six objectives were raised which included: To create awareness about how social workers work with patients and their families, to enlighten the public about how medical social worker assess the psycho social functioning of patients and their families, to create awareness on how medical social worker counsel mental patients and their families. And how social workers help to expand and strengthen the network of support to patients, to create awareness based on how social worker’s plan and conduct programmes to prevent substance abuse or improve health and counselling in community, to educate the public about how medical social worker’s intervene as advocate for patients to resolve emergency problem, to create awareness, formulate or co-ordinate programmes plan for treatment, care and rehabilitation of patients based on social worker experience and knowledge. In line with these objectives, two research hypotheses were formulated and two null hypotheses were posited. The total population for the study is 200 staff of selected health centers in Benue state. The researcher used questionnaires as the instrument for the data collection. Descriptive Survey research design was adopted for this study. A total of 133 respondents made doctors, vice principals adm, nurses and junior staffs were used for the study. The data collected were presented in tables and analyzed using simple percentages and frequencies
Conclusion
We also found that patients who reported multi-problems at time of the diagnosis received psychosocial treatment from a medical social worker irrespective of the mixed problems they experienced and that the disease-related mixed problems seem more treatable than the other problems. The patient’s evaluation of the origin of the mixed-problems was important in terms of achieving treatment goals. Based on the results of our study, it could be argued that mixed problems related to a chronic disease seem easier to manage than problems without a specific origin. Therefore, social work in somatic healthcare is most successful in patients with sicknesses related to social and psychosocial problems
Recommendation
Social workers in order to support social functioning of individuals, families and communities apply a holistic and rational approach instead of considering one-dimensional approach to human. In this approach the other dimensions of human such as social, cultural, environmental, physical, emotional, value and dignity of human beings is also scrutinize. Therefore the important role of social workers in the field of health is very important because the social workers are the fundamental performers in health care system.
References
- Administrative Affairs and Employment (1995). Law and employment regulations. Tehran: Administrative Affairs and Employment organization publication.
- Crouch C. (1979). Social Work Defined. National Association of Social Workers.
- Hutchison, E. (2008). Dimensions of Human Behavior Person and Environment.London, Sage.
- Samadi Rad, Anvar. (2008). social work in Iran. Kayhan 25/04/2008.
- Samadi Rad, Anvar. (2012). Retraining of social workers employed in health care. Tehran.
- Wilson K, Ruch G, Lymbery M, Cooper A (2008). Social Work. Harlow, UK, Longman, Pearson NASW Standards for Clinical Social Work Practice (2005). Available at: https://www.socialworkers.org/practice/NASWClinicalSWStandards.pdf Website of Wikipedia(2008). Available at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
- Health_care Website of Ministry of Health website(2010).Available at: www.webda.ir
- Miller Fitzergald J. Coping with chronic illness: Overcoming powerlessness. FA Davis, cop, Philadelphia 2000. 2.
