期刊名称：Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine: An Open Access Journal
电子版ISSN：2164-2850
出版年度：2022
卷号：10
期号：1
页码：121-123
DOI：10.1080/21642850.2021.2019584
语种：English
出版社：Taylor and Francis Ltd
摘要：Social prescribing, also known as community referral, is gaining international recognition as a health and social care initiative with benefits for individuals (e.g. improving mental wellbeing), healthcare services (e.g. decreasing inpatient admissions), and societies (e.g. creating more inclusive communities) (Drinkwater, Wildman, & Moffatt, 2019; Global Social Prescribing Alliance, 2021). Further, it is being advocated as an advantageous tool to help facilitate recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2021). Social prescribing involves a health or social care professional connecting an individual with an appropriate community-based opportunity to improve that individual’s health (physical and/or mental) and wellbeing (physical, mental and/or social), for example, a local jogging group to increase physical activity levels, or a hobby club to reduce feelings of loneliness. The connection can be made via a direct route (health or social care professional connecting person to communitybased opportunity) or an indirect route (health or social care professional connecting person to social prescribing professional – usually referred to as ‘link worker’ or ‘community connector’ – and social prescribing professional connecting person to communitybased opportunity). Different methods of connection can be utilised: signposting, prescription or referral in a direct route, and a combination of these methods in an indirect route (Cunningham, Rogowsky, Carstairs, Sullivan, & Ozakinci, 2021). Social prescribing can therefore be conceptualised as a ‘system’ (Husk, Elston, Gradinger, Callaghan, & Asthana, 2019, p. 7) comprising two parts: (1) the community-based opportunities for health and wellbeing improvement; (2) the processes of connection from health or social care to those community-based opportunities (Cunningham et al., 2021; Husk et al., 2019).
