What Shapes Professional Practice: Judgement and Decision-Making in Danish Outpatient Alcohol Counselling.

AIM: Decisions made by social work professionals determine the scope and nature of the help clients receive. These decisions rest on professional judgement, making it essential to understand the foundations of such judgement to grasp social work practice. This qualitative study explores professional decision-making and practice among Danish addiction counsellors working in outpatient treatment for alcohol use disorders. The aim was to examine what the counsellors base their professional judgements on and the reasoning that informs their decisions.

METHODS

Utilizing the vignette method, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 addiction counsellors. Interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis.

RESULTS

Our findings show how the counsellors base their professional judgements and decisions on knowledge and values, respectively. We identified differences among counsellors in how values were understood and applied. Several values lacked clear definitions and appeared in varying or subtly distinct forms.

CONCLUSIONS

The study underscores the need to clarify the values guiding social workers' judgements and decisions. Values shape how knowledge is used, making their clarification essential for evidence-based practice. Without such clarity, value-based practice becomes meaningless, and values cannot effectively guide professionals in their clinical work.