A Study On Front-Line Social Workers’ Attitudes To Evidence-Based Practice And Influencing Factors

In order to respond to the scientific,professional,and effective questions that social work faces,domestic scholars have begun to introduce evidence-based practices into the field of social work in our country.The attitude of social workers to evidence-based practice will affect their choice and implementation of evidence-based practice.However,what is the attitude of social workers in our country towards evidence-based practice?How do the personal factors of social workers and the external environment affect their attitudes towards evidence-based practice?These are all worth exploring.On the basis of ecosystem theory,this study explores the attitudes of Chinese social workers towards evidence-based practice and the factors affecting them,by conducting a questionnaire survey and regression analysis and using snowball sampling to select 241 front-line Chinese social workers as research subject.In the study,the attitudes of social workers to evidence-based practice includes six sub-dimensions:Suitability,Requirements,Job Security,Defects,Monitoring,and Burden.Suitability refers to the possibility of taking the initiative to learn and implement evidence-based practice in subjective and objective situations;Requirements refers to the possibility of implementing evidence-based practice when it is requested by supervisors and so on;Job Security refers to the understanding of the possibility of learning evidence-based practice to increase job security;Defects refers to the views on the shortcomings of evidence-based practice;Monitoring refers to negative views on supervision;Burden refers to the burden of learning evidence-based practice.The study found that(1)Chinese social workers have a relatively positive attitude towards evidence-based practice.(2)For self-variable,women have more positive attitudes in the suitability dimension,and men have more positive attitudes in the monitoring dimension.Age has a significantly positive effect on the attitude to the requirements dimension,while the number of years engaged in social work has a negative effect.Educational background has a significant negative impact on the attitude of the burden dimension.(3)For education variables,evidence-based practice learning situation can significantly positively affect the attitude toward suitability dimension.(4)For colleague variables,none of the variables have a significant effect on any dimensional attitude and overall attitude.(5)For supervisor/executive director variable.Supervisor/Executive director’s support for innovative intervention methods has a significantly positive impact on suitability dimension attitude and overall attitude.(6)For institution variables,the degree of support by the institution for new intervention methods and the degree of support by the institution for the autonomy of social work services are all significantly positively correlated with the attitude of the defect dimension and the overall attitude.The reimbursement for learning and training expenses by institutions can significantly positively affect the attitude of suitability dimension and the attitude of job security dimension.(7)For social work values variables,the understanding of social work values encouraging and supporting innovative interventions has a significantly positive impact on the attitude to the dimension of defects.The understanding of social work values advocating scientific intervention can significantly positively affect the attitude of the suitability dimension and the attitude of the defect dimension.The degree of the identification with the promotion of using scientific intervention in social work has a significantly positive correlation with the suitability dimension attitude and overall attitude.On the basis of the study results,this study proposes that social workers should enrich their knowledge of evidence-based practice,institutes of higher education should build a new paradigm of teaching social work,and other suggestions,from the aspects of individuals,educators,colleagues,supervisors/executive directors,institution and social work values.Doing so will continuously improve social workers’ awareness of evidence-based practice,enhance positive emotions at evidence-based practice,and strengthen willingness to participate in evidence-based practice,ultimately providing a theoretical basis for promoting the development of evidence-based practice.