Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36271695›Full record

ArticleHealth & social care in the community2022

Social prescribing link workers-A qualitative Australian perspective.

Leah S Sharman, Niamh McNamara, Shaun Hayes, Genevieve A Dingle

Open access · hybridAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Health & social care in the community, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
19citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
27.1field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 36 citations in OpenAlex.

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  9. Addressing Social and Cultural Determinants of Health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People in Chronic Disease Programs: A Scoping Review.Health promotion journal of Australia : official journal of Australian Association of Health Promotion Professionals · 2025
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.

Leah S SharmanSchool of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia.
Niamh McNamaraNottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK.
Shaun HayesSchool of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia.
Genevieve A DingleSchool of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia.
University of Queensland · AUNottingham Trent University · GB

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Social prescribing (or community referral) is a model of healthcare designed to address social needs that contribute to poor health. At the heart of social prescribing programs is the link worker, who liaises between clients, health professionals and community organisations. Social prescribing is newly emerging in Australia but there are already calls for a large-scale roll out. This research, therefore, aimed to understand Australian link workers' role and skills required, to determine where such a workforce could be drawn from in Australia, and to identify what training and resources are needed to support this potential new workforce. To explore these questions, interviews were conducted with 15 link workers in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, and the transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis. Participants were predominantly female (87%); and primarily had qualifications in social work (47%) or nursing (27%). Three overarching themes were identified: (1) skills of successful social prescribing, identifying that link work requires multifaceted social and emotional skills; (2) workforce issues, presenting that link workers experienced challenges such as a lack of available support and training, lack of public awareness of social prescribing and a lack of sustained funding; and (3) job fulfilment, related to link workers' sense of reward and accomplishment from the job. We suggest that fostering job fulfilment in conjunction with the provision of increased support, training and security will reduce feelings of overwork and burnout among link workers and likely lead to longevity in the role. Social prescribing has the potential to be hugely beneficial to clients and the community and fulfilling for link workers, provided that sufficient advocacy and resources are put in place.

Indexed as

Burnout, ProfessionalSocial WorkersFemaleHumansJob SatisfactionMaleQualitative ResearchSocial WorkVictoriacommunity participationlink workerslonelinesssocial connectionsocial prescribing

Identifiers

PMID36271695
PMCPMC10092430
OpenAlexW4307091483

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.