Social Work Professionals in Healthcare: An Exploratory Study of Staff Knowledge and Attitudes in Obio/Akpor LGA, Rivers State

This paper is on staff knowledge on the roles of social works professionals in medical field; a case study of government teaching hospitals in Obia/Akpor local government area, Rivers State. The study was conducted at University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) Port Harcourt. The area is selected as one of the government hospitals with social work professionals working with other medical field practitioners. The data were collected using questionnaires which were given to respondents and the analysis of the collected data portrayed the factors that challenge integration of social work professionals in medical services. The study which is dominantly quantitative in nature, adopts the structured questionnaire in the generation of primary data for the study. The result indicates that most the medical staffs are not aware of the role of social workers at the hospital. This is true since the mean values are below the benchmark of 2.5, meaning that most of the respondents were on the disagree range of the scale, but item one which has the highest mean score shows an indication that the staffs are aware that social workers are part of the medical team but do not know the roles they play in the well-being of patients in the hospital. Thus it is clear that medical staffs are not aware that social workers supports patients financially, provide psycho-social therapy to patients, and also acts as a mediator between the patient and staff hence, their services are underutilized in the hospital. The paper recommended among others that the Government should employ more hospital social workers so that they can be able to meet the demand of their services to patients and clients at the hospital.