Examining diagnosis as a component of Social Workers’ scope of practice: a scoping review

Abstract

Our study reports on a scoping review examining the role of diagnosis within social work practice in Canada and the United States (US). Adopting the process laid out by Arksey and O’Malley, the search captured 189 academic and grey literature drawn from six health and social sciences databases and published from January 1980 to April 2020. The majority of literature were based in the US, and studies covered a variety of practice settings including hospitals, community clinics, medical health clinics, and private practice. Various versions of the DSM was mentioned in over half of the publications that made mention of the use of a diagnostic tool. Four themes emerged from the analysis: professional positioning, clinical activities and diagnosis, contextual factors, and education and training. The focus on holistic care through intersecting identities and social determinants of health in social work provides a balance to the biomedical model adopted by the DSM. Further inclusion of social work perspectives in the development of the DSM may help raise awareness and inclusion of ecological factors in diagnosis. In addition, the lack of uniformity in the inclusion of diagnosis in social work curriculum has been noted as an opportunity to offer higher quality instruction and supervision to students to better utilize diagnostic tools. We suggest that expanding the scope of practice for social work to include diagnosis can help increase the capacity of the healthcare system to identify and address mental health concerns.

Clinical Social Work Practice in Canada: A Critical Examination of Regulation

“…A recent scoping review on diagnosis in clinical social work practice found that there is a need to strengthen social work education and training in diagnosis. At present, there is limited guidance on how to increase competence in social workers to be able to include diagnosis in social workers’ scope of practice (Sur et al, 2022). Table 1 shows which provinces include diagnosis in social workers’ scope of practice.…”