ELDERLY PATIENT SATISFACTION WITH HOME HEALTH NURSING SERVICES.
Contributors: University of San Francisco.
Published: 1986
Number of pages: 171
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Home health care is rapidly gaining recognition as the most effective method for combating rising health care costs. An estimated 5 million Americans require home health care, with the elderly having the greatest home-care needs. With home health care moving toward becoming a primary health care source for American's elderly population, documentation of the program's value appears necessary.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a home health agency's nursing services by determining the extent to which patients were satisfied with the services. A component of the evaluation process was assessment of the extent to which consideration was given to patients' views of their home-care needs, and assessment of patients' knowledge about services and limitations of home health care agencies. The sample population, interviewed by telephone, included 54 patients referred for home-care services to a county-based home health agency in the San Francisco Bay Area and their respective continuing care coordinators.

General findings of the study indicated an underutilization of home health care services and an underrepresentation of ethnic minority patients. Overall, most patients expressed a high level of satisfaction with the home health nursing care they received despite a number of patients having expressed a lack of awareness that they had been referred for home-care services, lack of knowledge about the role of the home-care nurse, and lack of knowledge about the services and limitations of home health care programs. Patients also expressed the feeling that neither the continuing care coordinators nor the nurses had made an effort to obtain their (patients') perspectives on their home-care needs.

Findings of the study highlight the existence of a severe discrepancy between the theory and practice of collaboration between health care providers and consumers in the health care planning process. The challenge facing health care providers is to become more knowledgeable about home health care and to provide documentation of the program's worth to ensure that every patient eligible for home-care services, and in need of it, receives it.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-08, Section: B, page: 3292.

Thesis (ED.D.)--UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1986.

School code: 6019.