Finns det ”ett gott myndighetsutövande” inom äldreomsorgen – och påverkas biståndsbedömningen av omsorgsmottagarens kön?

Our aim with this essay is to examine if social work in the care of elderly tends to be salutogenetic or patogenetic oriented. A salutogenetic oriented activity means that the social workers focuses on the elderly peoples individual possibilities, and collaborate with the receiver of care in order to offer him or her aid and resources for meaningful living conditions. A patogenetic oriented activity on the other hand means that the social workers focuses on the elderly peoples most primary needs, their illnesses and to introduce adequate treatment. We also examine if social workers in the care of elderly tend to prefer male or female characteristic features in the receivers of care. Finally we wanted to find out if there were any gender distinctions, if the appraisal of aid were more affected by a male or female receiver of care. We also considered that gender might not have any affect on their appraisal at all. Our theoretical framework is mainly based on three already existing theories. These gave us a general list of salutogenetic/patogenetic statements and typical male/female characteristic features. Because of time shortage the material includes only one empirical method, which is a questionnaire to the employees in the care of the elderly. The method of analysis is mostly quantitative, but since the questionnaire also contained some opened questions, our study is partly qualitative. A total of 101 persons participated in our questionnaire poll. The results of our study brought about unexpected results. To our surprise, the social workers in the care of elderly tend to prefer male characteristic features in the receivers of care. We also found that what requires of a good apraisal of aid is a salutogenetic perspective, but that the social workers thought it was difficult to apply in practice