Journal of evidence-based social work (2019)最新文献

Purpose: Since Hawaii has the highest rate of per capita of persons experiencing homelessness (PEH) in the United States, the purpose of this qualitative evaluation study was to evaluate the experiences of both the providers and clients of a Street Medicine (SM) program serving one side of the island of O'ahu.

Method: This evaluation used Story Inquiry to qualitatively assess one SM program serving one side of the island of O'ahu in Hawa'i. Since the culture in Hawaii is largely based upon stories, a qualitative approach was taken to better understand the lived experiences of PEH who utilized the SM services, as well as provider perspectives.

Results: The findings of this evaluation include strengths of increased primary care engagement and improved quality of life for PEH; barriers to success included transportation scarcity and limitations of services available.

Conclusions: The findings lend implications for new SM programs, including gathering community support, having culturally aware outreach and that mobility and flexibility can overcome health-care barriers for PEH.

Purpose: With the increased attention to the principles of evidence-based practice (EBP), social workers are challenged to adapt their daily interventions accordingly when treating clients. They usually work with individual clients, all with their own specificities. Single-Case Experimental Designs (SCEDs) can be used to inform a social worker about the effectiveness of an intervention at the individual client level. In everyday social work practice, however, it is difficult to meet methodological requirements of SCEDs to find causal explanations. A concern is that repeated measurements prior to an intervention are required in most situations. This study aims to provide researchers with alternatives to repeated measurement when using the logic of SCED to apply EBP in their everyday practice.

Methods: In this study, we reviewed published single-case designs between January 1 and December 31, 2019, on types of SCEDs in the social domain, and how is dealt with baseline conditions.

Results: SCEDs and quasi-experimental alternatives are hardly published in situations when baseline data are not available. Four underused quasi-experimental strategies that can be employed when repeated measurement during baseline is not possible are as follows: retrospective baselines, theoretical inference, multiraters, and triangulation with qualitative data.

Discussion and conclusion: The suggestions to work with single-case designs with quasi-experimental elements are meant to enable social workers to evaluate their interventions in a way that enhances mere narrative evaluations of the experiences of an intervention.

Purpose: Resettled refugees in the U.S. face a disproportionately high risk of COVID-19 exposure, infection, and death. This study examines COVID-19 vaccination status among adult participants and their minor children, reasons for vaccine hesitancy, and predictors of vaccine uptake, as well as sources of COVID-19 news and information and trust in those sources.

Method: The data in this study were drawn from the Telehealth and COVID-19 Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices in New York Refugee Communities Survey (N = 353), conducted March-May, 2022.

Results: The multivariate results indicate that in this sample of resettled refugees, those who reported higher levels of educational attainment, were from Afghanistan, and those who had fewer concerns about the vaccine were more likely to accept vaccination. The participants in this study identified local health workers, clinics, and community organizations - places where social workers are present - as both the largest source of nonsocial media COVID-19 news and information and the most trusted source of COVID-19 news and information.

Discussion: The implications from this study provide social workers with an understanding of the social and behavioral factors impacting vaccine uptake in refugee communities.

Conclusion: According to the NASW Code of Ethics, social workers must challenge inequalities that persist against marginalized groups, such as racial and ethnic health disparities. Social work practitioners can play an essential role in decreasing unjust health disparities by providing accurate, culturally appropriate information on public health concerns such as COVID-19 to their refugee clients and within interprofessional collaboration.

Purpose: This paper examines patterns of response to a multi-disciplinary wrap-around program for homeless adolescents and transition-aged youth with substance use and/or mental health disorders.

Method: A cluster analysis of outcome data from 148 youth was conducted.

Results: Cluster 1 (n = 67) demonstrated significant decreases in risky behavior (e.g., engaging in unprotected sex, crime, and substance use) and poor interpersonal relationships (e.g. more interaction with family and friends and lower rates of violence) but experienced relatively fewer interactions with family and friends. Cluster 2 (n = 57) demonstrated a significant decrease in poor life functioning (e.g., lower rates of employment/education, better quality of life, and less symptoms of internalizing disorders). Cluster 3 (n = 24) experienced significant increases in risky behavior, poor life functioning, and poor interpersonal relationships.

Discussion: Clusters 1 and 2 improved over six months of care. Cluster 3 deteriorated despite receiving similar services and used more opioids and stimulants.

Conclusions: Peer engagement in programs for this population are important. Recommendations for cluster 3 include targeted outreach, medication assisted treatment, and additional research-supported treatments. Further research is needed to test these interventions over longer periods of time.

Purpose: The current study aims to test perceived affiliate and courtesy stigma in Hubei province China during the early periods of COVID-19 by using network analysis.

Method: In this study, 4,591 participants (3,034 female, mean age = 26.64) from the Hubei Province of China were recruited to conduct network analysis.

Results: The network analysis found network connections between Estranged - Blamed, Shamed - No Strong Point, and Rejected - Plague were the strongest. The most important stigma features (nodes) of COVID-19 (i.e. Plague, No Strong Point, Discriminated, and Disgusting).

Discussion and conclusions: This study uncovered the most central features of perceived affiliate and courtesy stigma on COVID-19, proposing these features (and associations between features) could be prioritized for anti-stigma interventions for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate an encouragement trial of a Parents as Teachers (PAT) home visitation intervention on the school readiness of preschool children using an innovative analysis to address issues of selective enrollment.

Method: Families were given the opportunity to enroll in a PAT program through a randomized lottery. The PAT program is assessed using standardized measures of school readiness before and after the two-year program. A comparison of three different analyses is used to evaluate the program - Average Treatment Effect (ATE) analysis, Intent-to-Treat (ITT) analysis, and Complier Average Causal Effect (CACE) analysis. CACE is an innovative analysis developed specifically to diagnose bias arising from selective enrollment in the context of an encouragement trial.

Result: All three analyses (ATE, ITT, and CACE) provide statistically significant evidence of an effective PAT program. However, the effect sizes for the CACE analysis are over twice as large as the other two analyses. The Cohen's D for CACE is .934 compared to .424 for ATE and .381 for ITT.

Conclusion: This study provides evidence of an effective PAT program. The comparison of ATE, ITT, and CACE analyses reveals the potential for meaningful under-reporting of the program's impact if selective enrollment is ignored. CACE analysis demonstrates how selective enrollment can bias evaluations of home visitation interventions in general.

Purpose: The primary objective of this study was to identify patterns in users' naturalistic expressions on student loans on two social media platforms. The secondary objective was to examine how these patterns, sentiments, and emotions associated with student loans differ in user posts indicating mental illness.

Material and method: Data for this study were collected from Reddit and Twitter (2009-2020, n = 85,664) using certain key terms of student loans along with first-person pronouns as a triangulating measure of posts by individuals. Unsupervised and supervised machine learning models were used to analyze the text data.

Results: Results suggested 50 topics in reddit finance and 40 each in reddit mental health communities and Twitter. Statistically significant associations were found between mental illness statuses and sentiments and emotions. Posts expressing mental illness showed more negative sentiments and were more likely to express sadness and fear.

Discussion and conclusion: Patterns in social media discussions indicate both academic and non-academic consequences of having student debt, including users' desire to know more about their debts. Interventions should address the skill and information gaps between what is desired by the borrowers and what is offered to them in understanding and managing their debts. Cognitive burden created by student debts manifest itself on social media and can be used as an important marker to develop a nuanced understanding of people's expressions on a variety of socioeconomic issues. Higher volumes of negative sentiments and emotions of sadness, fear, and anger warrant immediate attention of policymakers and practitioners to reduce the cognitive burden of student debts.

Purpose: This research explores the views of probation specialists working with young offenders about their professional process, professional problems, and the evidence-based practice approach.

Method: The qualitative method was used in the research and the phenomenology pattern forms the basis of the research. The data deciphered and conceptualized with descriptive analysis by the organizing and senior researcher.

Results: According to data from in-depth interviews, due to the dual structure of the probation system, which includes both execution and rehabilitation, professional staff experience role conflict. Professional problems such as excessive workload, inadequate physical conditions, not separating the job descriptions of probation specialists according to their fields of expertise, job dissatisfaction, and burnout are common. In addition, there are no scientific tools to measure the effectiveness of the intervention programs and monitoring process in the probation system.

Discussion: There is a need for developing the effectiveness of intervention programs in the probation system and an evidence-based intervention system. At the end of the article, some suggestions on effective social work practices in the probation system are presented from the perspective of evidence-based practice.

Purpose: This paper explores how neoliberal ideologies inform both social and political agendas that influence how social workers can provide support to trans and gender diverse people attempting to access gender-affirming healthcare, using an analysis of social workers' experiences working in mental health in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Method: Qualitative semi-structured interviews provide a perspective of the experiences of social workers in Nova Scotia and how their ability to provide mental health services to trans and gender diverse people is impacted by neoliberalism.

Results: Most social workers attributed the structural context of working within a bio-medical system as contributing to social workers being disempowered, undermined, and not able to practice according to the values of their profession thus limiting their ability to provide affirming mental health supports to trans and gender diverse people in ways that align with their social work professional ethics and values.

Discussion: Through examining how neoliberal ideologies create notions of ideal social citizens by controlling the body, the paper explores how lived experience of neoliberal practices in mental health social work reinforce transnormativity. This paper highlights the necessity for social workers to resist dominant neoliberal and medicalized discourses which serve as mechanisms of power and control.

Conclusion: The paper concludes with recommendations for social work practice with trans and gender diverse populations.

Purpose: The purpose of this scoping review was to document the state of the literature regarding the challenges experienced by rural informal caregivers of older adults in the United States.

Method: We reviewed peer-reviewed academic articles published through December 1, 2021, based on Arksey and O'Malley's framework.

Results: The initial search resulted in 1,255 articles, of which 12 studies were included for the final review. Thematic content analysis was utilized to identify emerging themes of challenges experienced by rural informal caregivers of older adults. The identified challenges include a lack of knowledge regarding resources, financial difficulties, health-related challenges, and barriers related to geographic distance.

Discussion and conclusion: The implications of these challenges are used to shape recommendations for social work, service planning, and policy changes that can improve caregiving experiences for rural families.