A Qualitative Study on Social Workers' Experiences and Perceptions in Responding to Solitary Death Prevention

This study investigates systemic and practical interventions at mitigating solitary deaths, based on the first-hand experiences of social workers in Daejeon Metropolitan City, South Korea. As solitary deaths increasingly transcend age and socioeconomic boundaries, manifesting as relational disconnection in hyperconnected societies, the role of frontline practitioners warrants critical examination. Focus group interviews were conducted with five social workers engaged in managing high-risk population. The findings revealed that solitary death was perceived as ‘death with disconnected relationships’, ‘lonely death among crowds’, ‘death that can occur to anyone regardless of age’, and ‘an increasingly common phenomenon’. Causes of solitary death included ‘lack of care from others’, ‘lack of self-care’, ‘rejection of services or social interaction’, ‘physically isolated spaces’, and ‘accompanying poverty issues’. While practitioners responded with ‘discovery and information gathering through connecting with people’, ‘active promotion’, ‘differentiated response efforts by generation’, and ‘continuous management starting from relationship building’, they faced limitations such as ‘occurrence of rejection cases’, ‘inefficiency in service delivery’, ‘lack of capacity to respond to mental health cases’, and ‘insufficient services’. Therefore, the study advocates continued attention to solitary death, support for those who decline services, the strengthening of human safety nets and the effective delivery of services.