Minskat antal hembesök inom barnhälsovården. Sjuksköterskornas attityder avgörande för hur verksamheten utvecklas
Sammanfattning
Home visitations to newly become parents have a long tradition in Sweden. The aim is to give the parents an opportunity to talk about their new situation, to give information on child care and nurse- examine the infant. In recent years, the proportion of families receiving home visits has decreased.
The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes of the child health care nurses to home visitations, the frequency in which they were made and to study the organizational conditions for making these visits.
The study consisted of a survey of the frequency in which visits were performed and a questionnaire to all CHC nurses in Sweden exploring their attitudes to home visitations.
The questionnaire was sent to 2355 nurses and 1834 responded (78.3%).
According to the nurses there were three main reasons for not doing home visitations: the parents declined, lack of time and large districts. There were no differences either in terms of various organizational arrangements or the individual nurse’s work-experience. Remarkably the reasons for not doing home visitation do not correlate with the statements made by them indicating how important they declared these visits to be.
Indications are that nurse’s attitudes to home visits as a primary child health care practice is a critical factor that should be studied further. Likewise further exploration is needed on parental attitudes to home visitation. Above all, the nurses need more support and training in such matters, which each respective county child health unit should take more responsibility for.