title: Social work practitioner knowledge and assessment of late-life depression.
abstract: Late-life depression has attracted considerable attention in the social work literature. This study examined levels of knowledge and self-efficacy (confidence) in evaluation of depression in late life among a random sample of social workers (N = 168) from the National Association of Social Workers. Relationships among knowledge on aging, job-related variables, and predictors of knowledge of geriatric depression were examined. Participants ranked depression as one of the most frequent clinical problems seen in practice, scored at the lower end on knowledge about aging, and experienced great difficulty on the items pertaining to suicide in the older adults.
authors.affiliation: Center for Mental Health & Aging, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 19104, USA. zgellis@sp2.upenn.edu
authors.forename: Zvi D
authors.initials: ZD
authors.lastname: Gellis
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D015577:Geriatric Assessment; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009518:New York; D020377:Self Efficacy; D012947:Social Work / Q000193:education*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires