Eighty social workers working with elderly patients in 36 acute care hospitals provided information about their overall job satisfaction as discharge planners and identified sources of satisfaction and dissatisfaction in their jobs. Twenty-eight percent were very satisfied and 50 percent somewhat satisfied with their jobs. Sources of satisfaction were the ability to help patients and families, concrete resource provision, job challenge, and autonomy. Dissatisfaction resulted from organizational constraints and lack of support from other health care professionals. Educational and theoretical implications are discussed.
The lack of concern among the elderly with future crises has been related either to the presence of security or to the avoidance of threat. To explore these conflicting hypotheses a measure of anticipation, planning and preparation in the areas of health, living arrangements and finances (APP) was correlated with measures of demographic characteristics, functional status, past experience, emotional states, futurity, interpersonal relationships an self-in-interaction. For the sample of sixty, all seventy years or over, the security explanation was supported: low APP was associated, for example, with less anxiety, more perception of self as dominant and affiliative in interaction, and more appropriate expectations of responsible others. Concern with future adversities is apparently nonfunctional, reflecting a preoccupation with events that may not occur because of "event uncertainty" and "timing of event uncertainty."
Data were obtained in 34 hospices from social workers, nurses, and volunteers on how frequently they performed 27 social service activities and how much time they spent performing them. Findings revealed that social workers were employed part time and did not play an unique role in service provision. In contrast, nurses were employed full time and provided services commonly associated with social work practice. The authors discuss the study's implications for the future of social workers in hospice settings.
Concern about the effects of deinstitutionalization has generally related to the plight of former mental patients rather than to that of patients' families. In examining whether schizophrenic clients attending a community mental health center were burdensome to their families, this study focused on the perceptions of clients' significant others and concluded that burden and social supports might be related in important ways.
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