MATERNAL-CHILD HOME VISITING: ELEMENTS OF A PUBLIC HEALTH NURSING PROGRAM (HOME HEALTH CARE).
Contributors: University of Virginia.
Published: 1991
Number of pages: 169
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Public Health.; Sociology, Public and Social Welfare.
Description: Policymakers have expressed a renewed interest in maternal- child home visiting, yet little current information is available on traditional public health nursing programs. The purposes of this exploratory research were to: (a) describe the entry characteristics of a maternal-child population visited at home by public health nurses, (b) provide examples of the nursing services, (c) determine the nursing resources used by different client groups, and (d) analyze the status of clients at discharge from home visiting.

Data were collected by means of a retrospective review of records from a public health agency in Virginia with a well- established home visiting program. The sample consisted of 100 charts of maternal or child-health clients who were referred during 1986 and 1987 and who were admitted by a public health nurse for home visiting.

Factors abstracted from the records included: client characteristics at entry to home visiting; elapsed months of nursing service, the number of nurse visits, incomplete visits, and other nurse contacts per episode of care; and charted outcomes. Measures of prenatal risk and family dysfunction were developed based on available record data. In addition, narrative summaries were prepared on a selection of cases chosen to illustrate the nature and complexity of nursing services. Item reliability, assessed by recoding a random selection of 10 records and calculating the percent of agreement, ranged from 70% to 100%.

Data were analyzed using content analysis, descriptive statistics, and graphic displays. An effort was made to identify subgroups with distinctive patterns of resource utilization. Family dysfunction at entry to home visiting was clearly the best predictor of high resource use. Other resource intensive groups were youthful mothers (14 to 17 years) and low-educated mothers. By far, the most frequent outcome of care was goals met, found in 60% of the cases.

The results of the study suggested that traditional public health nurse home visiting for women and children was not only extant, but effective as judged by charted outcomes and case histories. Programs such as the one described here should be considered in federal policy recommendations on maternal-child home visiting.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-04, Section: B, page: 1785.

Thesis (PH.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, 1991.

School code: 0246.