Nephrology Social Work: Social Work Intervention in Chronic Kidney Disease

Health services in nephrology units include not only the physical/medical services, but also psychological and social services. Such services in nephrology units are presented around the world by teams that consist of nephrologists and assistants, nurses, nutritionists, social workers and psychologists. This area is called nephrology social work in the social work discipline, and the knowledge, value and skills used in such social work are adapted to patients who are receiving medical care in the nephrology unit. This area has not improved as much as desired in Turkey because of the insufficient numbers of social workers and relevant academic studies. We evaluated the roles and functions of social workers that are members of the team working in nephrology units in this study.