title: The personal impact of home-care nursing: an alternative perspective to home-care satisfaction.
abstract: In this phenomenological study, I aimed to describe the personal impact of home-care nursing and to compare the findings to domains of the construct of home-care satisfaction (HCS). I report data from interviews with 11 women (ages 82 to 96) who had home-care nurses during a 3-year period. None of the women mentioned satisfaction, but when asked about their nurses, they shared memorable incidents exemplifying how home-care nursing was relevant to their personal goals. Using a previously developed descriptive phenomenological method, I discerned this feature of personal-social context (or life-world) as the main finding: Being Aware of What Stands Out for Me About Having a Nurse at Home. This main finding had six descriptors, including Sensing that the Nurse Knows How to Do What Nurses Do and Linking the Nurse's Help to Sustaining Myself Here. I compared the findings to domains of HCS on three parameters, including evaluation of satisfaction versus relevance of nursing activities. I concluded that compared with satisfaction with home care, the personal impact of home-care nursing was a more basic interest to the women and that the perceived relevance of nursing activities is an important standard for appraising that impact. I recommend that researchers use phenomenological methods to discern life-world descriptors of the personal impact of home-care nursing and use those descriptors to develop indicators to measure the personal impact of home-care nursing.
authors.affiliation: University of Missouri-Columbia, Sinclair School of Nursing, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. PorterEJ@missouri.edu
authors.forename: Eileen J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Porter
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over / Q000523:psychology*; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003152:Community Health Nursing / Q000458:organization & administration*; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care; D005260:Female; D006379:Helping Behavior; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D019300:Medical Errors / Q000451:nursing; D008923:Missouri; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology*; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D012944:Social Support; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014930:Women / Q000523:psychology*