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.