Assessment of Social Functioning through Social Fieldwork Documents for Persons who have been Psychiatrically Diagnosed

Also known as social investigations or field surveys, social fieldwork documents (SFDs) are required by psychiatrists, psychologists or medical expertise commissions for establishing a diagnosis or assessing the seriousness of a disease or for establishing a therapeutic strategy. The first part of the paper comparatively analyses two “extreme” types of accomplishing SFDs: the “permissive” model and the “hyper-formalized” model; the conclusion we have drawn is that there is no unanimously accepted methodology in the domain. This is the reason why in the present paper we suggest a methodological model that comprises a cognitive matrix, as well as a set of procedures (how one should search), which are meant to improve SFDs methodology. The suggested methodological model is theoretically grounded on ICF, The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF,2004), and it is based on the concept of social functioning.