Mångfacetterad yrkesidentitet : En intervjustudie om kuratorer inom palliativ vård

Sammanfattning: The focus of this study is the professional identity of social workers in palliative care. It is based on six qualitative semi-structured interviews with social workers from six units within the same palliative service in Stockholm County. The material was processed through thematic analysis and analyzed based on concepts from role theory. The results show that the roles of the social worker and the counsellor relate to each other either by harmonizing, reinforcing one another or by being mutually exclusive. They also identify themselves with additional titles, and the construction of the professional identity is influenced by several external and internal factors. The importance of each factor differs in the individual cases, which results in identification with different roles. However, the medical context that characterizes palliative care seems to unite the social workers in a common professional identity which they feel sets them apart from other health care social workers.