Randomized trial finds reduced mortality but unchanged resource use among two-year stroke survivors receiving social work, suggesting direct therapeutic benefits.
The survivors to two years, of a population‐based stroke incidence study, were randomly allocated to treatment or control groups in a trial of the effectiveness of a client‐centred social work service. After twelve months, no difference was discernible in the use of health or community resources by the 110 treated subjects or the 103 controls; no significant difference was present in activity‐independence scores. Of the 31 deaths that occurred, 11 were in treatment subjects and 20 in control. The mortality difference was most evident in those subjects not institutionalised at the beginning of the study; overall the difference was significant at the 7% level. It is suggested that the social work service had little effectiveness in altering health resource usage but may have been a therapeutic agent in its own right.
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Christie et al. (1984) studied this question.
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