Research in Home Care

Abstract

Past and present research in the home care setting predicts future trends. Home care research studies will continue to reflect social and economic issues of the future since research and researchers do not exist in a vacuum but are influenced by their era. Because of the generalized concern about economic stability and health care costs and the heightened interest in home care, investigations related to nursing interventions, client outcomes, and reimbursement will increase. As researchers search to identify long-term, positive client outcomes, the role of physical and psychosocial environmental factors will receive greater attention. Clients, too, do not exist in a vacuum but reflect the family and support systems which do, or do not, surround them. For home care research to serve as the scientific base for practice, continuing and increasing collaboration must occur between nursing service and education. More joint appointments or shared positions are likely as blending occurs in researchers' roles and nursing service staff assume more responsibility for research projects. The struggles involved with financial support of home care research will not cease. Home care researchers will continue to compete for funding with other nursing, health care, and research investigators. Specific strategies will enhance funding opportunities for home care nursing. These include: (1) increasing methodologic soundness, (2) increasing sophistication of studies and investigators, (3) publicizing findings and benefits of projects, and (4) developing a successful history of obtaining funding and conducting studies. Research in the home care setting will thrive if it attracts more and more nurses with scientific skills similar to those identified by Sir Medawar: "Among scientists are collectors, classifiers, and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics."