Exploring mandatory reporting in social care and social services in Sweden

Abstract

In Sweden, mandatory reporting in social services is regulated by the Social Services Act to protect service users and improve services. The aim of this article is to describe mandatory reports by staff and compare types of mistreatment, severity and actions across three areas of social services: elderly care, disability services, and individual and family care. All the reports written by staff and investigated by a designated official over a 1-year period (n = 1105) in one of the largest regions in Sweden were retrieved, inductively coded and quantitatively analysed. The results showed that most of the reports related to unsafe behaviour and organisational issues. Of all the reports, 14% (n = 156) were deemed to be serious. Differences in assessing mistreatment are discussed in relation to incident reporting in health care. The need for new models of analysis for mandatory reporting in social care is highlighted.