Social Work Roles and Activities Regarding Psychiatric Medication: Results of a National Survey‪.‬

For decades, a growing literature, largely conceptual in nature, has argued for the expansion of social work roles regarding psychiatric medication, and a concomitant increase in content on psychopharmacology in social work education. For example, in the very first articles on the topic in the 1960s, Brodsky and colleagues (1964) and Hankoff and Galvin (1968) emphasized that social workers should serve as a resource for physicians with respect to their medicated clients, including helping to educate clients about their medication. In the early 1970s, both Weissman (1972) and Thale (1973) challenged social workers to better recognize how medication and casework could work together and to pay attention to how personal attitudes and values regarding medication could affect medication compliance. With an even bolder voice, in the 1980s Gerhart and Brooks (1983) emphasized the need for social workers to more fully embrace the advocate role with respect to medications. In the 1990s addressing the psychological impact of taking medications was put forth as an important and particularly appropriate role for social workers (Bentley & Walsh, 1998; Higgins, 1995). Basic practice guidelines for work ing with clients and physicians regarding medication issues have appeared over the past 25 years (for example Cordoba, Wilson, & Orten, 1983; Davidson & Jamison, 1983; Littrell & Ashford, 1994; Matorin & DeChillo, 1984; McCollum, Margolin, & Lieb, 1978; Wise, 1986). More recently, textbooks or special issues of journals on the topic have been published that argue social workers should take on a wider range of more proactive roles in psychopharmacology, such as client and family consultant-collaborator, medication educator, medication monitor, and counselor (for example, Bentley, 2003; Bentley & Walsh, 2006; Dziegielewski & Leon, 2001). Despite the literature that calls for expanded roles, however, we found no earlier research that empirically assesses what social workers are doing in their daily practice with respect to psychiatric medication. This article is an initial attempt to fill that gap in our knowledge base.