Confidentiality in Direct Social-Work Practice: Inevitable Challenges and Ethical Dilemmas

Abstract

Social workers have long concerned themselves with confidentiality and its importance to practice. In 1922, social workers created their Code of Ethics, a major precept of which is the protection of confidentiality, defined as the regulation, both legal and ethical, that protects the client's rights of privacy. Social workers are confronting many ethical issues related to confidentiality, such as increasing demands for accountability, mandated duty-to-protect or -warn provisions, expanding court involvement in professional decision making, and widening access to information in records through the expanded use of computer technology. The objective of this study was to learn more about practitioners' ethical dilemmas in maintaining client confidentiality. A mailed, anonymous survey of experienced social-work practitioners was conducted to gain an understanding of how practitioners address confidentiality issues in their work with clients and to identify specific areas in which practitioners experience ethical dilemmas related to confidentiality, the factors contributing to these dilemmas, and the resources used by practitioners to resolve them. Major issues of practitioner concern and specific areas in which practitioners felt a need for more resources, education, and policy clarification were identified.