Social Work and Parkinson's Disease Care: Challenges and Opportunities in the Era of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background and Purpose: Social workers (SW) play a crucial role in addressing the psychosocial needs patients and families with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) face. However, the literature documenting SW role in PD care remains limited and pre-dates the enormous health and social changes brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic continues to affect the health and social service delivery, there is a critical need to understand its impact on SW practice and PD care. The purpose of this study is to examine the unique roles SW play in PC care, and the changes in patient and family needs pre and post COVID-19.

Methods: A web-based survey was distributed via email to SW who self-identified as working with PD patients in PD care teams in the US and Canada. Demographics, workplace characteristics, and SW interventions and utilization were collected, along with open-ended questions for further descriptions of experiences. Descriptive statistics were calculated for all study variables. The chi-squared test and Fisher’s exact test were used to explore the difference of SW practice before and during COVID-19.

Results: A total of 39 SW with 8 mean years working with PD in the US and Canada participated in the survey. Approximately 74% of participants worked in university/teaching hospital outpatient clinics. While biopsychological assessment and direct patient care continued to be the primary tasks, SW report spending more time educating the PD team on patients’ and families’ psychosocial concerns since COVID-19. Although half of SW changed their physical work settings, no significant change was reported in the frequency of direct patient care. However, 56.7% of SW reported an “increase in need for more emergent services as opposed to routine follow up and outreach.” Approximately 60% of SW reported their communication with clinical providers changed as a result of the pandemic. The risk factors that SW urgently warrant a social work referral also differed before and during COVID-19 and included an increase in patients living alone with PD and/or minimal or no family support (43.6% to 48.7%), need for increased connection to community resources (28.2% to 35.9%), and isolation/loneliness (2.6% to 10.3%).

Conclusions and Implications: This study is the first, to our knowledge, to describe the role of SW in PD care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings demonstrate the essential nature and adaptability of SW in the care of PD. Given the duration and continued uncertainty of COVID-19 and the increased health and social needs it has magnified, it is imperative that SW practice remain at the forefront of care in order to ensure the psychosocial well-being of PD patients and their families are met. Beyond COVID-19, assessing the needs of PD patients and families, as well as others with neurological differences is an important area for increased social work practice and research given demographic shifts resulting in an increasing aging population in North America.