Roles and activities of the social workers in the pilot application of primary healt care systemin düzce

The objective of this cross sectional study was to investigate the perception and beliefs of family practitioners working in Düzce about the place and roles of the social workers in primary health care system. The study group consisted of physicians working at both primary health care and public health care centers in Düzce. A total of 118 physicians (99 from the 31 primary health care centers and 19 physicians from the 8 public health centers) were included into the study. However we could be able to communicate 98 (%83) physicians out of these 118. A questionnaire with 21 items was administrated to these physicians. According to the results of the questionnaires the demographic properties of the family practitioners were described. The following data particularly regarding the social workers were also obtained: The status regarding the cooperation with social workers in their daily practice, whether they had lectures on social cares during the medical training or not, the psychosocial problems of the patients and the solutions of these handicaps that they experienced during their practice, their thoughts about role of the social workers, the necessity of a social care activity. The differences in the results of items regarding the necessity of a social worker in the health care team and cooperation with the social worker were compared with the age, gender and working years of the physicians including their educational background about social care. The majority of physicians 65 (66.3%) were at the 24-35 age group. Males were 65 (66.3%) and 46 (46.9%) of the physicians graduated in between 2001 and 2006. 95 (96.9%) of the physicians had no education as residency training in medicine. Also 65 (66.3%) of the physicians did not have lectures on social care in their medical training. Consequently, 54 (55.1%) of the physicians did not know what social workers do instead of 7 (7.1%) did know. 32 (32.7%) of the primary care physicians declared that they need social workers in their practice. The roles of socialworkers were defined by the physicians as to provide essential educational support in child growing, to define socioeconomic defects, and to play a role in terms of preventing child abuse. There was no association between the properties of the physicians as age, gender, working years, having previous education on social workers and the results of all items regarding the activities and importance of a social worker. In conclusion, the results of the current study suggest that family practitioners do not have sufficient information about of functions of the social workers. Key words: Social worker, primary health care, family practitioner, health care management