KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE, AND BEHAVIOR REGARDING MEDICAL SOCIAL WORK AMONG HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS IN ONCOLOGY HOSPITAL- HO CHI MINH CITY- VIETNAM

Abstract

Understanding the knowledge, attitude and behavior of healthcare providers about medical social work is very important to understand the challenges that social worker might face in multidiscipline teams or hospital settings; and the feasibility of adopting new policies. This study is designed to investigate knowledge attitude and behavior among healthcare professional towards medical social work in Oncology hospital in Ho Chi Minh city. The data of this cross-sectional study was collected by face – to face interviews with full-time medical staffs who have working in the Oncology hospital for more than one years. Based on the literature review and previous studies, a structured questionnaire had been developed and validated by expert reviews to measure the level of knowledge, attitude, and behavior. The stratified random sampling technique was used Wilcoxon signed-rank test, Mann–Whitney U test, and Multiple Linear Regression were applied for data analyze. The study found there was a low level of knowledge. There were nearly a half of respondents had a negative attitude and two-thirds of medical staffs had towards medical social work. Among 298 participants who are nurses, physicians, pharmacists and medical technicians, physicians had the lowest knowledge and behavior score, second lowest attitude score. Gender, education level, and number of working hour were all the factors which were statistically significantly associated with attitude score. Interaction frequency, education level and interaction with social workers were associated with behavior score while just only experience factor was associated with knowledge score. their knowledge, attitude, and behavior towards medical social work of medical staffs should be improved by education programs.This study provides a baseline information on the knowledge, attitude, and behavior regarding social work and serves as a basis for conducting future research as well as designing intervention program.