The purpose of this study was to understand how social workers experienced working with Addiction Severity Index (ASI) in relation to the goal set by the National Board of Health and Welfare. The method is spread nationwide and therefore it is of great importance to examine how the social workers themselves experience the demands and the resources surrounding ASI. We choose to do a qualitative study interviewing eight social workers at six different occasions. The result was analyzed using Max Weber’s ideal type bureaucracy and Michael Lipsky’s thesis on street-level bureaucrats. We found that the social workers consider the method useful when used from without their own purposes. The standards set by the National Board of Health and Welfare was considered hard to achieve because of the complexity of the method. Among other things the valuation done by both social worker and client was regarded as tough and therefore the results of the interview are at risk of not becoming reliable. We found that the outcome of the interview depends on the performer.

<p>The purpose of this study was to <em>understand</em> how social workers experienced working with Addiction Severity Index (ASI) in relation to the goal set by the National Board of Health and Welfare. The method is spread nationwide and therefore it is of great importance to examine how the social workers themselves experience the demands and the resources surrounding ASI. We choose to do a qualitative study interviewing eight social workers at six different occasions. The result was analyzed using Max Weber’s ideal type bureaucracy and Michael Lipsky’s thesis on street-level bureaucrats. We found that the social workers consider the method useful when used from without their own purposes. The standards set by the National Board of Health and Welfare was considered hard to achieve because of the complexity of the method. Among other things the valuation done by both social worker and client was regarded as tough and therefore the results of the interview are at risk of not becoming reliable. We found that the outcome of the interview depends on the performer.</p>