Researcher Receives Prestigious Award to Study Factors that Delay Hospice Care for Terminally Ill Older Adults

Release Date: May 31, 2002 This content is archived.

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BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A social work researcher at the University at Buffalo has received a prestigious award to explore, in collaboration with Hospice Buffalo, the psychosocial factors that contribute to delayed hospice care for terminally ill older adults.

Deborah Waldrop, C.S.W., Ph.D., an assistant professor in the UB School of Social Work, has been selected as a Hartford Faculty Scholar, a national award designed to improve the well-being of older adults. Waldrop, one of only 10 recipients of the award for 2002, will use it to strengthen the practice of geriatric social work in Western New York.

Waldrop will study how the psychosocial issues -- emotions, communication skills and relationships -- cloud understanding of terminal illness and become barriers to seeking hospice care at the end of life. Both nationally and locally, "late" or "delayed" referrals often are made to a hospice within only the last week or two of a patient's life, although hospice care is available for at least six months of a terminal illness.

The two-part study will explore how hospice professionals intervene while caring for patients who have entered hospice in the very last stage of a terminal illness and their families, and family caregivers' experiences when a loved one entered hospice care "late" -- only during the final stage of a terminal illness.

A specialist in geriatric social work, Waldrop will receive $100,000 in funding over two years to enhance geriatric social-work education at the UB School of Social Work, to develop university-community partnerships in geriatric education and service, and to conduct a community agency-based research project.

Results of the survey will be used to develop interventions that will result in timelier hospice referrals, to facilitate compassionate and appropriate care at each stage in a terminal illness and to teach future health-care professionals about the needs of terminally ill people and their families.

"Health-care facilities, hospitals, inpatient physical rehabilitation, outpatient clinics, nursing homes and hospices are places in which older people experience difficulty and loss. My strongest professional commitment is to frail and vulnerable older people. Through creativity in education and research, I hope to provide future social workers with a deeper understanding of how to better serve this population -- and their caregivers -- during the most difficult moments of life," Waldrop said.

Funded by the John A. Hartford Foundation of New York City, the Faculty Scholars Program was founded to increase faculty commitment to training social workers to meet the growing and specialized needs of an aging population. The program is administered by the Gerontological Society of America.

While there are an estimated 600,000 social workers practicing today in the U.S., fewer than 5 percent of social work master's degree students and roughly 7 percent of social work doctoral students specialize in aging.

Waldrop lives in East Amherst.

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