Social Work Intervention in Health Care

In the present health care system, the psychological and social needs of patients and their families are much neglected. This book recognizes the importance of the psychosocial aspects of health and illness and aims to provide relevant theories and practice guidelines for social work intervention in hospitals, clinics, welfare agencies and community settings.

Social workers in general ‘not just medical social workers’ are often confronted with health-related issues. This book also recognizes the needs of these practitioners in terms of background medical knowledge and concepts of stress and coping. Readers are therefore introduced to skills and approaches for working with different target groups in the health care system, such as the psycho-educational approach, life-skills training, reminiscence therapy, cognitive rehabilitation, discharge planning and health promotion.

This book contains chapters on mental health, social and medical issues such as suicide, teenage pregnancy, drug abuse and occupational health, as well as on the disease groups of cancer, chronic renal failure, epilepsy, stroke and brain injury.

The editors are associated with the Department of Social Work and Social Administration of the University of Hong Kong. Cecilia Lai-wan Chan is a professor of the department, and Nancy Rhind was a former field instructor.