The purpose of this study was to describe the preferences of minority and non-Hispanic White home bound older adults aged 60 and over for making decisions to accept and arrange community-based, psychosocial, and in-home services prescribed by Home Health clinical social workers (N=249). Overall, prescribed community-based, psychosocial, and in-home service referrals were accepted by participants. In-home supportive services, Short- and Long-Term Case Management, and Psychiatric Nurse were the most frequently arranged services by clinical social workers. Resistance by both minority and non-Hispanic Whites to the arrangement of services was evident for several other services. Social workers, case managers, and other professionals involved in the arrangement and planning of services for similar older adults can use the results to gain an understanding of both the specialized services prescribed by clinical social workers to functionally dependent older adults and the decisions older adults make to accept and/or arrange such services.
The objectives of this study were to identify areas of agreement and disagreement between nursing staff and older adult patients about discharge needs, and to explore relationships between hospitalized older adults' perceived postdischarge Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) dependency, social networks, and quality of life. Differences between patients and nurses for the ADL scale showed that patients perceived themselves as being more independent with respect to ADLs upon discharge than did their nurses. Agreement between patients and nurses for the Quality of Life Index indicated high agreement about patients'general well-being upon discharge. Positive relationships between overall IADL and both overall Social Network and Friend subscale scores were indicative of the positive effects of social support on patients' perceptions of IADL independence. Implications for case management practice were suggested.
By 2020, health care social workers are projected to make up 25 percent of the entire number of professional social workers in the United States. At the University of Southern California, the number of graduate students selecting the health social work concentration has increased exponentially over the last five years. Although there are no published findings to indicate that other schools of social work are experiencing a similar trend, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that, nationally, the number of social workers employed in health care has increased and is projected to continue increasing over the next decade. The purpose of this study was to identify decision-making determinants of MSW students pursuing a specific vocational interest in health care settings. The study used a questionnaire to gather quantitative and qualitative data from a population of MSW students. The findings suggest that graduate students select the health concentration based on self-knowledge (abilities and interests) and vocational knowledge (job demands and labor market). This article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for health social work curriculums, practice, research, policy, and the integral role social workers play in health care reform in the present and will play in the future.
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