What healthcare professionals know about medical social work – a quantitative study in Ho Chi Minh City, Oncology Hospital, Vietnam
Keywords:
Medical social work, Healthcare professional, VietnamAbstract
Purpose - This study was designed to investigate knowledge of health care professional toward medical social work in Oncology hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.
Design/methodology/approach - The descriptive data was collected by face to face interviews with full-time medical staffs who had working in the oncology hospital for more than one year.
A structured questionnaire had been developed and validated by expert reviews to measure the level of knowledge. Stratified random sampling technique was used to draw the samples from two strata: clinical and para-clinical department.
Findings - Among 298 participants including nurses, physicians, pharmacists and medical technicians, 79.9% had poor knowledge level; 19.5% had moderate level; and just only 0.2% had good knowledge. About 32.9% respondents thought that medical social work and charity activities were the same. Moreover, there was a misunderstanding in the roles of medical social work in hospital; and some of common roles were not acknowledged by healthcare professionals.
Originality/value - The study provides a baseline information on the knowledge regarding social work and services for conducting future research as well as designing intervention programs.
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