Surveillance as a Nursing Intervention: Use in Community Nursing Centers

Abstract

The purpose of this multisite retrospective descriptive study was to describe the nature of surveillance as a nursing intervention within 3 urban community nursing centers (CNCs). Secondary analysis of clinical data was conducted for clients seen in 1995. The CNCs used the Automated Community Health Information System (Lundeen & Friedbacher, 1994), a relational database. Nursing diagnoses and interventions were described according to the Omaha Classification System (Martin & Scheet, 1992b). The sample included 1,506 unduplicated clients who received care during 5,248 encounters and was characterized by more adults 20 years and older (56.1%), women (71.0%), and African Americans (77.2%). The age range of the clients was infancy to 95 years (M= 29.90 years). Surveillance was a significant nursing intervention making up 27.1% of all interventions (7,557 of 27,898), and 68.5% of the clients received surveillance. There was a significant relation between the provision of surveillance and age range, χ² (5, N = 1,427) = 211.96, p _ .001, V = .385, and gender, χ² (1, N = 1,501) = 17.90, p _.001, φ = .109. Clients who were 40 years and older and who were women were more likely to receive surveillance. Surveillance was provided most often for the diagnoses of circulation and nutrition. Health promotion and disease prevention diagnoses were more likely to prompt surveillance. The provision of surveillance was linked to age and developmental risk factors.