TY - JOUR
T1 - Role changes of hospital social workers in South Korea
AU - Nam, Seok In
AU - Choi, Kwonho
AU - Kim, Junpyo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2019/8/9
Y1 - 2019/8/9
N2 - The roles of social workers in hospitals have changed in accordance with the environmental changes in the healthcare system. Since 1958, hospital social workers have performed important roles in providing care services in South Korea. Providing psychosocial services was considered to be the most important for more than 30 years from the 1970s to the 1990s. The healthcare system has since undergone major environmental changes, yet there has been little study on the role of hospital social workers in South Korea. In order to address this research gap, this study aims to explore how the roles of hospital social workers have changed since the 2000s. We recruited 198 hospital social workers who were active members of the Korean Association of Medical Social Workers as study participants. The average age of participants was 35.36 years old (SD = 8.27), and they had an average of 8.24 years in hospital social work experience (SD = 6.35). The results indicated that the roles of financial support and community resource linkage, which were regarded to be relatively less important until the 1990s, were recognized as the most important. Given the role changes of hospital social workers in South Korea, implications are discussed.
AB - The roles of social workers in hospitals have changed in accordance with the environmental changes in the healthcare system. Since 1958, hospital social workers have performed important roles in providing care services in South Korea. Providing psychosocial services was considered to be the most important for more than 30 years from the 1970s to the 1990s. The healthcare system has since undergone major environmental changes, yet there has been little study on the role of hospital social workers in South Korea. In order to address this research gap, this study aims to explore how the roles of hospital social workers have changed since the 2000s. We recruited 198 hospital social workers who were active members of the Korean Association of Medical Social Workers as study participants. The average age of participants was 35.36 years old (SD = 8.27), and they had an average of 8.24 years in hospital social work experience (SD = 6.35). The results indicated that the roles of financial support and community resource linkage, which were regarded to be relatively less important until the 1990s, were recognized as the most important. Given the role changes of hospital social workers in South Korea, implications are discussed.
KW - Hospital social work
KW - role change
KW - South Korea
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85067685725&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/00981389.2019.1625845
DO - 10.1080/00981389.2019.1625845
M3 - Article
C2 - 31194668
AN - SCOPUS:85067685725
SN - 0098-1389
VL - 58
SP - 703
EP - 717
JO - Social Work in Health Care
JF - Social Work in Health Care
IS - 7
ER -