The aim of the study is to investigate how social workers relate to the self-determination in cases that involve people who have dementia. To investigate this we have chosen to build a qualitative study. The study is based on four interviews with social workers in elderly care in Sweden. To analyze our material we chose the concept autonomy, and legal texts from the Social Services Act (SFS 2001: 453) and Parental code (SFS 1949: 381). Our results show that social workers are often forced to deviate from the law and guidelines to ensure the best for the person with dementia. Social workers justified their actions by arguing that what they did was in, or in line with the persons best interest. The person’s self-determination is left to stand back in some emergency cases where social workers cannot stand by and watch as the clients suffer. It was also shown that the administration process is often more extensive in cases involving people who have dementia than people who do not have dementia. The reason for this is that there are several elements that social workers must take into consideration, among other things, determining if there is a dementia diagnosis and if a legal guardian application should be made. It was also brought to light that social workers often have to spend more time on motivating the person with dementia to receive support. This motivation the interviewees called to coax, which can be seen as another word for persuasion. This is done although the law says that the client should have self-determination.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kau-35258 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Hjalmarson, Linda, Hjärpe, Jennie |
| Publisher | Karlstads universitet, Fakulteten för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap (from 2013), Karlstads universitet, Fakulteten för humaniora och samhällsvetenskap (from 2013) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess, info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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