Social Worker Attitudes Toward Court-Mandated Substance-Abusing Clients

Abstract

This study investigated the attitudes of social workers toward clients mandated to substance abuse treatment. Surveys were mailed nationwide to members of the National Association of Social Workers with a stated work focus of substance abuse (N = 779). Participants received 1 of 6 vignettes depicting a client scenario and a semantic differential scale on which to rate the client. Client status (mandated to treatment, volunteered for treatment, no substance abuse condition) was the independent variable. Three categories of attitudes (determined by a factor analysis of the semantic differential data) were the dependent variables. Mandated clients were rated lowest on all attitude dimensions.

KEYWORDS:

• attitudes
• court-mandated clients
• social workers
• substance abuse treatment

Notes

¹ The study received exempt status from the University Committee on Activities Involving Human Subjects (UCIAHS) at New York University (NYU). NASW released its list on receiving documentation of NYU's approval.

² For copy of the instrument, see Vairo (2006).

³ As it was not the focus of this analysis, attitudes relating to gender are not discussed here. For that analysis, see Vairo (2006).

⁴The NASW list provided names and addresses only. Therefore no other data on nonrespondents were available to test further for possible response bias.

⁵This information was obtained from the envelopes of returned surveys. Geographic data were not collected as part of the survey.

⁶As it was not the focus of this analysis, attitudes relating to the background of the respondents such as substance abuse history or training are not discussed here. For that analysis, see Vairo (2006).