Scoping review of social workers' professional roles in primary care

Objectives: Maximising social workers' contributions to primary care requires clarity about their scope of practice in this context. This scoping review sought to clarify what is known about social work's scope of practice in primary care settings.

Design: A scoping review design guided by the five-stage scoping review framework developed by Arksey and O'Malley and the updated JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis.

Data sources: 204 articles, published between 2013 and 2023 and obtained from the following seven databases, were reviewed: MEDLINE, CINAHL, Social Work Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts and Scopus.

Eligibility criteria: Peer-reviewed articles that included a focus on social work and primary care, written in English, published between 2013 and 2023 and not restricted by geographical location.

Data extraction and synthesis: Social workers' scope of practice in primary care was assessed in terms of role; health conditions, patient populations, social issues addressed; location of practice and modality for care delivery; range of providers that social workers collaborate and methods of collaboration.

Results: Results indicate that primary care social workers advance comprehensive, patient-centred, continuity of care and benefit both patients and other providers within primary care teams. Social workers undertake a range of roles, activities and functions in primary care settings-spanning direct patient care, team processes and community engagement. Social workers in primary care are involved in supporting patients with a robust range of mental, behavioural and neurodevelopmental conditions, as well as other acute and chronic health conditions. Most social workers are physically co-located within a team and are collaborating with a wide range of providers within and outside of the team.

Conclusions: This scoping review contributes clarity about social work's capacity for enhancing the delivery of primary care. Social work's role in primary care facilitates comprehensive, continuous and patient-centred care that improves the experiences of both patients and teams. Social work clinicians, leaders and scholars are encouraged to seek out opportunities to participate in and undertake research identifying these contributions to primary care.