The Attitudes of Social Work Students Toward End-of-Life Care Planning

Abstract

This study examined the attitudes of social work students toward end-of-life care planning, as well as their degree of willingness to engage in this area of social work practice. Factors associated with their attitudes were measured through structured surveys completed by 102 social work students (N = 102) at a school of social work in the southeast. Results indicated that these social work students tended to have positive attitudes toward end-of-life care planning in general. Moreover, these attitudes were positively associated with preference for pain relief treatment, higher levels of comfort when discussing death, more emphasis on self-determination, and apprehension of conflicts of self-determination. The results of this study underscored the increased societal need for recognition of personal preferences in end-of-life care, higher levels of comfort when discussing death, and an increased commitment of social workers' to maintaining the ethical principle of the client's right to self-determination in end-of-life planning. While this is not surprising, it points to a continuing need to re-assess where the field stands in its preparation of social work professionals who will work closely with people who are dying and their families.

Social workers’ involvement in advance care planning: a systematic narrative review

“…Twenty studies used cross-sectional surveys, three used qualitative interviews [24–26], and the remaining eight were interventional studies [27–34]. Sixteen descriptive studies included a sample of only social workers [11, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 35–44]. Of them, four included social workers recruited from hospitals, additional four included social workers from nursing homes, two included social worker students, and the remaining six included a mixed sample of social workers (Table 1).…”

“…68% of the respondents reported that social workers were responsible for documenting ACP.4. Compared with those at other care settings, oncology and inpatient palliative care social workers were less likely to be responsible for ensuring that patients/families are informed of ACP options and documenting ACP preferences.Kwon et al, 2014 [11] (USA)To examine the attitudes of social work students toward EoL care planning,A cross-sectional surveyA cluster sample of social work students at a school1021. 72% of the participants indicated that they felt comfortable discussing the topic of death.2.…”

“…• 52–71% of social workers agreed that they are responsible for talking with patients and participating in the process of decision making regarding LSTs [22]. • 72% of social work students in the US indicated that they felt comfortable discussing the topic of death [11]. • 41% of social workers in South Korea felt comfortable with death discussion [19].…”

“…Ethical issues related to the use of ACP• 97% of social worker students indicated that self-determination is a very important principle in social work practice [11]. • 75% of social worker students answered that they would be troubled if problems of self-determination resulted in conflicts [11]. • 77% of social workers said they often or always were involved in conflict resolution with families [43].…”

“…ACP is a voluntary process of discussion that extends the rights of competent adults and enables them to express or communicate their wishes about future health care through periods of decisional incapacity [3, 10, 11]. During this process, ADs may or may not be formulated, which are “a person’s verbal or written expression or instructions about his or her wishes, preferences, or plans for future medical treatments or health care, in the event that he/she becomes unable to communicate” [3, 10].…”