ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Descriptive & Survey Study

Authors

Hosseini   S.M. (*)






(*) Janbazan Medical and Engineering Research Center (JMERC), Tehran, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Number 17, Farokh Street, Moghadas Ardebili Street, Tehran, Iran
Phone: +98 (21) 22415367
Fax: +98 (21) 22418180
mostajad@gmail.com

Article History

Received:  December  2, 2016
Accepted:  April 9, 2017
ePublished:  May 30, 2017

BRIEF TEXT


The mission of social work is to improve and promote the well-being and welfare of human beings, and the main characteristic of this profession is to pay attention to individual's welfare in the social context.

… [1-4]. Obviously, the intensity and pressure of job in profession of social work is greater than many of other occupations, and if these pressures are accompanied by dissatisfaction with the job, and if there is no resource to help illuminate the pressures, the performance associated with the lack of the social worker's satisfaction, not only will have a negative effect on the social worker, but also negatively affect the organization, the authorities, and ultimately the society [5]. … [6, 7]. It is necessary to pay attention to the issues and problems that cause these individuals to be harmed, and negligence of these issues, will cause the need to take care of them. Neglecting them will improve additional costs and thus reduce the productivity of the organization. … [8-12].

Research on work-related injuries has been of post-traumatic type and has focused on actual work-related injuries, while the current study looked at potential injuries that is current and may not be objective. In addition, these studies have often focused on individual domain, and the present study seeks to address other aspects along with individual aspects of social workers. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the most important occupational injuries of social workers working in the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans` affairs and to make suggestions for preventing, coping or intervening of the injuries.

This study is descriptive and carried out in a qualitative way.

This study was conducted among senior staffs of the Foundation of Martyr and Veterans` Affairs in different provinces, who had the education or work experience of social working and responsibility of administrating their province department in 2013, as well as the social workers of the hospitals affiliated to the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans` Affairs, as well as the professors of this field at Allameh Tabatabai University.

80 subjects were selected through non-random sampling and entered the study.

Data were collected through questionnaire via telephone conversation. The data collection was carried out in the form of irregular interview (non-structural interview) conducted by the researcher. Interviews with social workers who were working at the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs were conducted on the basis of the list of specifications provided to Human Resources Development Unit of the Foundation. In addition, for more accurate information, a telephone interview was carried out with some experienced staff in hospital and the center for the maintenance of psychiatric patients. Four of these people did not want to be interviewed and were discarded from the study. A telephone interview was conducted with two other professors from the Allameh Tabatabai University for further certainty. The main components that were questioned in these interviews were about three general concepts of nature of problems, reasons and causes of the problems and how to deal with them: 1- Identify and understand the interviewees of the harms that the social workers are exposed to in order to respond to the causes of occupational harms of the workers at the foundation. 2- The causes of occupational damages in three general areas: a. How Reasons associated with the organization such as management, programs and processes for the provision of work-related services as organizational factors, facilities, support, and lack of support can harm, prevent, and reduce work injuries? b. Reasons associated with occupational and professional specialties such as the use of professional staff in this profession, receiving up-to-date training, holding specialized workshops in the fields related to the social workers` issues, or the lack of any of these that can be effective in the emergence of occupational injuries of the social workers. c. How Causes of injuries related to the clients such as the number and variety of clients, their expectations and needs can cause harm to the social workers? 3. How to deal with injuries and getting strategies and suggestions for improving job conditions and preventing occupational injuries to workers. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.

After conducting the interviews and implementing the content of the interviews, the materials were divided into two general categories: 1- Causes of occupational injuries at the Foundation of Martyr and Veterans Affairs: These components were placed into three broad categories: a) Reasons associated with organization, management, processes, and planning, called organizational factors; b) Reasons associated with occupational and professional specialization of social working, and c) Reason associated with the clients. Organizational factors, occupational factors, and client factors had frequency of 60.0%, 30.0%, and 10.0% of the injuries related to the social workers (Table 1). 2- Proposals and solutions for the prevention and elimination of occupational injuries of the employees of the Foundation of the Martyrs and Veterans Affairs: these proposals were also classified into three categories: welfare, scientific and specialized, and legal proposals. The share of scientific and specialized proposals (with frequency of 37.5%) was more than other two. Welfare affairs (with a frequency of 31.25%), and rules and regulations (with a frequency of 31.25%) were of equal concern to the workers. In the domain of scientific and specialized suggestions, the most important and effective solution is the holding of specialized classes for updating of the workers and, subsequently, creating the necessary conditions for continuing education of the social workers and training of the managers and employees to understand the position of the social working as a profession with scientific degrees. In the area of welfare and livelihood proposals, the employers' obligation to take advantage of compulsory leave and compulsory recreation of the social workers and their families was the first ranking and the strategy of allocating appropriate overtime payment and special encouragement was in the second rank. The strategies of creating sport facilities and the necessity to use it at the office hours, providing good physical space for the staff and the provision of the necessary facilities for duty were at the next ranks. Regarding the legal proposals, also, solutions for addressing the hardship of occupation and pre-retirement, the implementation of working out of the office in form of day-to-day work or reducing the hours of work for sensitive occupations, shifting jobs and the occupational positions after a certain period of time were among the most important solutions provided by the social workers (Table 2).

… [13, 14]. Kit van Hogtan in a qualitative study of 17 social workers, reports that the social workers were discriminated against and harassed at their workplace. They also experienced significant distress in their workplace [15]. Mc Acker's research in this area also shows the negative impact of social working occupation on the social workers [16]. Also, despite that the Grant`s research [17] has shown that 57% of the social workers have experienced the violent behavior of clients, in our study, this issues was in the lower rank compared to other two sources of injury.

It is necessary to spend more time and effort on this issue, and it may be necessary to look at this issue in an expert way so that the results can be generalized in the same group that has the same field of work.

There were some limitations in the way of this research including limiting access and inadequate interviewing time for multiple interviews and several contacts for coordinate, rage, and short answers without analyzing, creating expectations for solving the problems and expectation of the social workers for solving their problems and requests as a result of this interview. Another limitation (which is specific to qualitative research) is the inability to generalize the results of this research which was attempted to reduce the problems by comparing the results of other external investigations. One of the other constraints of this study is lack of employment of people in the post of work related to the field of study.

Organizational injuries are the most important occupational injuries of social workers employed in the Foundation of Martyr and Veterans Affairs, and the injuries related to the occupation and injuries associated with the clients are in the next ranks. The most effective suggestions presented by the social workers in the domain specialized suggestions and was related to conducting specializing classes for updating the information of the workers. The requirement of social workers to use paid leave and rest was in the domain of welfare suggestions, and considering the difficulty of employment and early retirement was in the field of legal suggestions that these suggestions were among the important solutions provided by the social workers.

The author thanks all the staff working in the provincial headquarters and affiliated centers of the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs and the professors who provided the knowledge and experience to them.

Non-declared

All interviewees answered the questions with full satisfaction and their personal details were not recorded in any cases. This article also been approved by the Ethics Committee for research in the Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs.

This study has been funded by the researcher and without receiving any financial support.

TABLES and CHARTS

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