Integrators In Interprofessional Collaboration:Research On The Professional Identity Of Social Workers In Long-Term Care Teamwork For The Aged

In recent years,with the progress of social work professionalization and specialization development in china,participating in interprofessional collaboration has become the challenges of social workers,especially in the long-term care for the aged.However,social workers are always facing a lack of professional identity in interprofessional collaboration due to the complexity of collaboration and social workers'lacking in professional base.So it's urgent to study the professional identity of social workers in interprofessional collaboration,which can help social workers clarify their professional position and unique value in teamwork and find their service logic in collaboration.Based on the ecological systems perspective,this study explores the team's collaboration process and the tasks of social workers participating in teamwork aswell as the construction of their professional identity by the grounded theory research.Participants were one general practitioner,eight nursing assistants and twenty-seven social workers in the long-term care team for the aged from city X in china.Date collection was based on literature,depth interview and participation observation.Date analysis was based on grounded theoy and the NVIVO software.The results show:(1)The collaboration has seven stages:finding clients;selecting clients and establishing a professional relationship;"medical-nursing-social work" assessment;planning comprehensive intervention;carrying on comprehensive intervention;multi-angle evaluation of the intervention and the closing.(2)The tasks of social workers participating in teamwork are five categories:tasks related to the aged;tasks related to the caregivers and the family;tasks related to the community;tasks related to the teamwork;tasks related to social work institutions.(3)In the process,social workers interact with different ecological systems,includes:a)micro systems:interprofessional team,clients,social work service institutions,communities and social work practice research team;b)mesosystems:social work service institutions and community,social work service institutions and social work practice research team;c)macrosystems:the communication and competition among the institutions in the same field,the government and the policy,social work education in china,culture.The systems directly affect the social workers' professional identity.(4)The process of socialworkers constructing their professional identity has four stages:a)unknownprofessional identity;b):initically recognition professional identity:c)developing professional identity;d)deepen professional identity.Social workers finally identified their professional identity as " integrators in collaboration".As integrators in collaboration,social workers focus on the multiple demands of clients and the interaction between clients and their environment,integrating professional services and informal supports,to promote the clients' problem-solving ability in daily life.The construction of professional identity is not only the division of labour,it's based on the service logic which focus on the clients' multiple demands and emphasis on multiple cooperation.This study will help social workers not only clarify their professional position and unique value in teamwork,can also help social workers to find their service logic in collaboration and their localization of social work theory.Due to the limitation of researchers'ability and the timing,there still remains some works need to improve,such as the choice of research object,the using of research methods and the design of the research.This dissertation consists of six chapters.Chapter 1 introduces the research background,research questions and the existing research base,identifies the focus of this dissertation is the professional identity of social workers in the interprofessional team.Chapter2 introduces the design of study,use the ecological systems perspective as a theoretical analysis perspective,and select grounded theory as the research method.Chapter3,chapter4 and chapter5 presents research findings.Chapter6 discusses the Theoretical issues in this study and summarizes the findings and limitations of the study.