Development of Medical Social Work Practices in Pakistan: Role Perception and Performance

Abstract

The current study is a quantitative study to understand the connotation of medical social work set up in Pakistan. The analysis is conducted through survey method by considering all medical social services units established in healthcare settings across Pakistan. The structured questionnaire has been devised to apply as a tool for data collection. The study found that the setup of medical social work is mainly established in the province of Punjab in Pakistan, whereas, only a few projects were working in the other regions of Pakistan. However, male medical social workers are more than female medical social workers in this profession. Further majority of medical social workers were of age less than 40 years and the majority of medical social workers were married. The analysis has established that the majority of medical social workers did not have to enrich their background of specialization, research, and training in the field of medical social work. The medical social work setup is mainly established in government hospitals in Pakistan. The job experience of the majority of the medical social workers in the field of medical social work was 5 years or below. Further nature of the appointment of the majority of medical social workers was permanent. The infrastructure like staff, furniture, and contingent is provided by the administrative department in the majority of the cases, however, the office is provided by hospital administration. The hospital administration has not integrated the services of medical social work into the service delivery mechanism of health care settings. However, the majority of the medical social workers were satisfied with respect to their job and have adequate facilities to perform their official duties. The findings of the analysis have asserted that the medical social workers that vigorously adopt the social casework practices had more beneficiaries of their services in comparison to those who did not adopt these practices.