Abstract
Academic training of social work students is fundamental to the development of a quality workforce. Historically, social workers have always worked with drug users.
AIM: To provide an overview of evidence reported by research studies dealing with the university education of social workers in the field of substance use in Europe and the USA. METHODS: The search returned a total of 552 studies on the addiction-specific university education of social workers.
Following information analysis using PRISMA, 19 articles were finally included in the study sample. The resulting product is a systematic review.
RESULTS: More than half of the social work students have never received any specific training in addiction science, with only about one-third of them having received at least some form of education in the field. There is a lack of content consistency in addiction-specific courses taught within the social work study programmes.
Less than half of the programmes under analysis offer elective courses covering addictological topics; and only in limited extent. Studying links between education, knowledge, and attitudes is important to gaining an understanding of the capabilities of social workers in addictological practice.
Studies of the implementation of training approaches with addictological content are beneficial for improving knowledge and skills. CONCLUSIONS: Many social work students' preparedness for work with addiction clients is inadequate.
There should be a focus on the innovation of the curricula in social work, an emphasis on interdisciplinary cooperation, the inclusion of addiction issues in the curricula, and the promotion of a national platform for the accreditation and licencing of addiction study programmes and evidence-based approaches, and the dissemination of research results across academic institutions should be encouraged.