title: A Qualitative Study of Difficult Nurse-Patient Encounters in Home Health Care.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore nurse-patient encounters from the perspective of the home health care registered nurse. A qualitative descriptive design was used to collect data from a purposive sample of 20 nurses from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island currently or previously employed as a home health care nurse. Four themes and 1 interconnecting theme emerged from the data: objective language; navigating the unknown; mitigating risk; looking for reciprocality in the encounter; and the interconnecting theme of acknowledging not all nurse-patient encounters go well. Three types of encounters-constructive, nonconstructive, and destructive-were defined.
authors: Graduate School of Nursing, University of Massachusetts, Worcester.
authors: Mary Kate
authors: MK
authors: Falkenstrom
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D005260:Female; D006699:Home Care Services / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008404:Massachusetts; D008875:Middle Aged; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology*; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations; D036301:Qualitative Research; D012237:Rhode Island