Achievements and Barriers in Hospice and Palliative Social Work Practice: A Qualitative Study

Purpose: Hospice and palliative care is a multidisciplinary approach to treatment and care designed to meet the needs of patients and their families at the end of life. Social workers are essential members of the hospice team, but their role is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to explore achievements and barriers in hospice social work practice and to suggest strategies for enhancing the role of social workers.

Methods: The participants were 10 social workers who had worked in hospice institutions for over 5 years and were recruited based on reputational case sampling. Data were collected through two focus group interviews, and were qualitatively analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results: Through the data analysis, two topics (achievements in hospice social work practice, barriers to achievements in hospice social work practice), five categories, 17 subcategories, and 182 concepts were derived.

Conclusion: Based on an in-depth discussion of our key findings, we propose several types of institutional support, including expanding the hospice social work workforce, improving competence through education and supervision, developing professional programs and community resources, and refining methods for measuring achievements.