Levels of directiveness: a contextual analysis.

Practitioners' decisions concerning levels of directiveness, reflecting their efforts to persuade clients, parallel their decisions about autonomy and beneficence. This qualitative study explores the levels of directiveness employed by social workers with the goal of expanding our understanding of the factors related to these practice decisions. An interview guide was used with a convenience sample of seventeen home health care social workers. Through the use of constant comparative analysis, six levels of directiveness and five related factors were found. This study calls our attention to the ethical dimensions of practice decisions and raises questions about the possible influence of practice context on practitioners' use of levels of directiveness.