District continence nurses’ experiences of their continence service in primary health care

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to describe district continence nurses' experiences of providing continence services in primary care. It has been stated that there is too little research on the experiences of district care nurses who provide continence services. Twenty-two district continence nurses answered a written questionnaire containing three open-ended main questions. A qualitative content analysis method was used to analyse the texts. The district continence nurses' feelings of maintaining their professionalism were promoted by scheduled patient encounters, patients who participate in assessment of urinary incontinence (UI) and functioning teamwork. The opposite situation, nurses' feelings of having a lesser degree of professionalism, was associated with not having scheduled patient appointments, patients not participating in assessment of UI and lack of teamwork. The district continence nurses lacked the authority to start nurse-led continence clinics because of the lack of collaborative teamwork, an organization that did not enable nurse-led scheduled appointments and nurses' limited view of their own profession. Primary health care managers and policy-makers need to provide an environment that enables interprofessional collaboration so that nurses' skills can be used to advance patient services; such initiatives could enable district continence nurses to reach their full potential.