Elwood R. Hamlin

How Adequate Do Social Workers Feel to Work with Elders with Alzheimer's Disease?

ABSTRACT In a systematic sample of Florida-licensed clinical social workers (N = 273), this study investigated the correlates of perceived adequacy to work with elders with Alzheimers disease and other types of dementia. Five predictor variables were identified from a standard regression analysis that account for 35.7% of the models adjusted variance: (a) employment with elders (Beta = .225, p = .000), (b) years of experience (Beta = -.125, p = .018), (c) attitude toward working with elders with Alzheimers disease (Beta = .351, p = .000), (d) perceived sufficiency of professional education to work with elders with Alzheimers disease (Beta = .178, p = .002), and (e) attitude toward the delivery of nonclinical services to elders with Alzheimers disease (Beta = .192, p = .000). Overall, respondents perceived their abilities to work with elders as slightly less than adequate. Implications are discussed.

Developing Positive Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Collaboration Among Students in the Health Care Professions

This study examined whether attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration (Physician-Nurse, Physician-Social Worker, Nurse-Social Worker) held by medical, social work, and nursing students changed after completing an interprofessional curriculum consisting of (a) Interprofessional Education Development Session and (b) the Senior Aging and Geriatrics Educator mentoring program. The 15-item original and two modified versions of the Jefferson School of Attitudes Toward Physician-Nurse Collaboration (JSAPNC) were administered as pretest/posttest. Of the 186 participants who completed the pretest, 156 (84%) completed the posttest. Results showed that the medical students (n = 52) reported the most positive change in attitude toward all three pairs of interprofessional collaboration. Social work students (n = 55) reported the least positive attitudes toward Physician-Social Worker collaboration and nursing students (n = 49) reported the least positive attitudes toward Physician-Nurse collaboration. It is recommended to evaluate the interprofessional curriculum and other factors, such as the possible influence of the facilitator in group discussions, and that future studies include a rigorous design that monitors content of each educational session to ensure integrity across groups. Postgraduate follow-up measures could be used to enhance positive attitudes toward interprofessional collaboration.

Measuring preparedness to address patient preferences at the end of life.

This study investigated the factor structure of an instrument to measure preparedness perception among Florida licensed clinical social workers for work with elders’ end-of-life care. In a principle component analysis with varimax rotation, three factors were identified with eigenvalues greater than 1.0 and a cumulative variance of 66.982 percent. These factors include: 1) knowledge of end-of-life care, 2) knowledge of resources for elders, and 3) attitude toward elder assisted suicide. The development of this type of instrument may be useful for future research and for determining future educational needs of social workers and other professionals.

Family Services: A Proposed Model for Coordinating Spouse Abuse Services.

ABSTRACT This article presents a proposed model to organize spouse abuse services within communities. It proposes that family service agencies take the lead in organizing and implementing the model program. The community team would consist of representatives from agencies and disciplines that serve spouse abuse families. The community would benefit from the coordination of both the direct services to affected families and the prevention and education activities designed to eliminate spouse abuse.