The psychosocial assessment is related to dynamic forces including the patient's health status, personal reactions to illness or injury, waxing or waning interpersonal, familial, or community problem-solving resources, and the patient's and family's capacity to manage these events.
Social workers acquire information to develop a plan for helping the patient and family.
The purpose of the psychosocial assessment is to help the health care team identify variables that either impede or facilitate health care progress. Overall, the goal of psychosocial assessment and subsequent social work intervention is to assist the patient in reaching the maximum benefit from health care resources. Psychosocial functioning describes a person's ability to perform the tasks of daily life and to engage in mutual relationships with other people in ways that are gratifying to self and others and that meet the needs of the organized community in which the person lives. Acute or chronic illness may be accompanied by difficulties and strains that bring about a period of disequilibrium. The patient's or family's perceptions of the world and themselves may also change.