ROAD TO RECOVERY FOR DEPRESSIVE PATIENT: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW ON DUAL PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL WORKER AND OTHER MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS

Abstract

No systematic review on the role of medical social worker and other mental health professionals in recovering process for depression patient has been undertaken. The aim of this systematic review is to synthesize published descriptions and models for dual partnership between social worker and other mental health professionals. A systematic search of articles published between January 2008 and November 2018 was conducted in several databases (EBSCOhost, PubMed, PsycNET, Jstor and Google scholar). Search terms were identified from title or abstracts: (‘mental health’ OR ‘mental illness’ OR ‘mental problem’ OR ‘mental disorder’ OR ‘mental problem’ AND ‘depression’ OR ‘depressive’ AND ‘recover’ OR ‘recovery’ AND ‘role of social workers’ OR ‘social services’ OR ‘collaborative care’). Out of 2613 papers that were identified and 59 that were reviewed, only 8 studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in the review. Articles were rejected if it was determined from the title and the abstract that the study failed to meet the inclusion criteria.  Evidence from outcome studies shows that psychosocial services play a vital role in the mix of services available to people living with a depression, as they undertake their individual journeys to recovery. The review acknowledged the important roles of social worker in the journey of recovering for depressive patient, apart from the role of psychiatrist and other mental health professionals. Since the early years of the profession, social work has had a commitment to work with people who have psychiatric disabilities by offering individual and group therapy sessions to patients, provide crisis interventions, arranging the services from referral agencies and help patients send back to the community. Patient-survivor recovery movement are closely aligned with those of the profession, and that the movement offers social workers a more promising perspective from which to practice.Keywords: depression, depressive, mental health, mental illness, recovery, social worker, collaborative care