Abstract
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the factors affecting involvement of medical social workers (MSWs) by analyzing our original “social high risk (SHR) checklist-records” for predicting the necessity of MSWs.
Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the patients who had admitted to emergency center of our hospital from July 1 to October 31, 2014. We examined the relationship between the involvement of MSWs and the factors; six items of patient basic information, major nine items of the SHR checklist-record (SHR factors), eight typical reasons for hospitalization. Logistic regression analysis was used as a statistical method.
Results: 189 patients were included. 62％ of the patients with the support of MSWs have some SHR factor. Four factors (seven or more hospital days, transfer to the other hospital, less decision-making ability, and slip and fall injuries) were significantly related to involvement of MSWs.
Conclusions: Our result suggests that the above four factors may lead to involvement of MSWs. The SHR checklist-records may be useful for extracting the necessity of involvement of MSWs, though further improvements based on the results of this study are needed.
