Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Doctor of Social Work (DSW)

School

Social Work

Advisor

Alex Casiano

Abstract

In the field of social work, roles, responsibilities, and contributions of social workers within an interdisciplinary team are often undefined. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore and describe medical social workers’ perceptions of their roles, responsibilities, and contributions to an interdisciplinary team. The theoretical frameworks that guided this study are Bronstein’s model of interdisciplinary collaboration, Luhmann’s systems theory, and Slater’s role differentiation. Interviews were conducted with 10 medical social workers who currently or previously worked within an interdisciplinary team to explore medical social workers’ perceptions of their roles, responsibilities, and contributions to an interdisciplinary team. Deductive coding and thematic analysis were used as roles, responsibilities, and contributions were the original concepts being explored. Findings indicated that social workers believed their roles to be a patient advocate, care coordinator, case manager, liaison, and patient and family advocate. This study was significant in that defining and understanding the roles, responsibilities, and contributions of medical social workers working in an interdisciplinary team provided information to other disciplines of the value of social workers regarding patient care. As a result, social workers will be able to provide more insight into patients’ wants and needs that otherwise may not have been understood. This study may contribute to positive social change as organizations will be able to amend job descriptions of medical social workers to incorporate the utilization of all social work skills to assist other disciplines and patient population in successfully transitioning to the next level of care.

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