Social Workers' Levels of Knowledge about Old Age and Perceptions of Service Delivery to the Elderly

Abstract

Following the assumption that practitioners' levels of knowledge and perceptions of their clients' characteristics affect the delivery of services, 200 clinical social workers were questioned regarding knowledge of and attitudes toward elderly persons. Palmore's (1977) Facts on Aging quiz provides the basis for determining whether respondents can be classified as high or low knowledgeables. Knowledge scores are found to be positively related to age, but not to sex of respondent, number of years with the MSW degree, or exposure to gerontology courses during graduate training. T-tests of mean scores and partial correlation coefficients (controlling for age) on 19 attitude items relating to various aspects of the elderly and their needs reveal few statistically significant differences between high and low knowledgeables. It appears that the high knowledgeables are less likely to see the elderly as a special group in terms of service delivery. However, this lack of clear difference between high and low knowledgeables suggests that an accurate knowledge base is not a primary factor in the perception of service delivery to the elderly.