Comparing social work's role in renal dialysis in Israel and the United States: the practice-based research potential of available clinical information.

This paper demonstrates the use of clinical data-mining in a study of social work interventions with dialysis patients in two countries, the US and Israel. We aimed to examine the role of social workers in improving kidney patient outcomes and to determine the potential of readily available patient information for studying this process. The findings showed considerable differences between the patient samples in both countries, as far as the socio-demographic background was considered. In spite of this, there were numerous similarities in the type of psycho-social problems and reactions, as well as the social workers' interventions. Differences which arose in various patient states and outcomes were examined in light of variations in the health care systems and socio-cultural contexts of renal dialysis in both sites.