Home visiting by a community health nurse

1. HOME VISITING

2. INTRODUCTION
 Home visit is one of the essential parts of the community health
services because most of the people are found in a home.
 Home visit fulfils the needs of individual, family and
community in general for nursing service and health
counseling.
 A home visit is considered as the backbone of community
health service.
 A home visit is a family nurse contact which allows the health
worker to assess the home and family situation in order to
provide the necessary nursing care and health related activities.

3. DEFINITION:
 A home visit is defined as the process of providing
the nursing care to patients at their doorsteps. It
requires technical skills, resourcefulness, judgment,
relationships.
 Home Visit is a purposeful and deliberate
psychosocial activity undertaken by the health team
members for meeting the diagnostic and
therapeutic needs of the family.

4. OBJECTIVES:
 To obtain information for family assessment.
 To get acquainted with the family.
 To begin a relationship of continuing
assistance in the family health and health
related needs.

5. PURPOSES
 To find out needs of individual, family and community in
relation to health, socioeconomic and cultural aspects.
 To provide domiciliary midwifery as care for pregnant,
delivery, and puerperal mother and infant.
 To give care to the sick, to a postpartum mother and her
newborn with the view teach a responsible family member to
give subsequent care.
 To assess the living condition of the patient and his family
and their health practices in order to provide the appropriate
health teachings.

6.  To provide basic health services for minor ailments. (i.e. injury,
boils, abrasions)
 To provide counseling on family planning, immunization, nutrition.
 To give health teaching regarding the prevention and control of
diseases.
 To establish a close relationship between the nurses and the public
for promotion of health.
 To make use of an inter-referral system and to promote the
utilization of community services.

7. PRINCIPLE OF HOME VISIT
 The home visit should have a purpose and objectives.
 The home visit should be planned according to priority.
 The purpose of the home visit should be clear, regular, and
flexible according to the needs of the family.
 First of all, introduce yourself, your institution, your purpose,
of a home visit, and collects facts about an individual, family
environment.
 Establish a good interpersonal relationship between families
and be polite, courage, friendly.
 Carefully listen the family and understand the others person
view.

8.  Health education and nursing care should be scientific.
 Use safe technical skills and scientific nursing procedures.
 Involve whole family members as much as possible during nursing
care.
 The nurse and family member must develop a positive interpersonal
relationship in their work to achieve present goals.
 Evaluate your own work periodically.
 Make a note of important facts about the home visit in your diary.
 Thanks to the family members and individual for good response.

9. COMPONENTS/PHASES/STEPS OF HOME VISIT
 Initiation phase and fact finding
 Examination and analysis of fact
 Planning action
 Action
 Use of expert technical skill
 Follow-up
 Evaluation of services

10. 1.Initiation phase and fact finding:
 Introduce yourself
 Establish a friendly relationship
 Study the clinical and other records
 Observe inside and outside the home for good and bad factors
 Use simple language
 Discuss what has been done and what the family wants to do for the
problem and what plans the family will have for the future

11. 2.Examinaton and analysis of facts:
• When the fact have been collected, the process of
examining and analyzing begins
• It is important to remember that true, honest
analysis is based on fact and not on opinion
• The personal, economic, emotional and the spiritual
aspects taken together constitute the usual health
problem

12. 3. Planning action:
 Planning action with the individual family is of
great importance in all your work and
relationships
 Preparation of detailed action or plan to
complete in all respects for the
implementation of an activity
 Plan should be acceptable and can be easily
followed by the family members

13. 4. Action:
 What you do should depend on the first 3
steps in the visit
 Even though you enter the family with a
definite idea and plan of what you will do,
you must be prepared to alter the plan to
meet the need that exists at the time of visit

14. 5. Use of expert technical skill
 Every professional worker needs tools and special
skills
 Use of knowledge and special skill are essential to
successful work
 Community health bag provide the nurse with the
tools she needs to detect early signs and symptoms
of disease so that her report to physician will be
correct and intelligent

15. 6. Follow- up
 Most important step in home visit
 Follow up of persons undergoing domiciliary
treatment in chronic diseases eg. leprosy, TB
 To know the progress of disease condition
 To check any change is needed in nursing
action

16. 7. Evaluation of service
 Community health nursing care results are not always
immediately obvious. It takes months and sometimes years
to see accomplishments
 There are some failures in your part and some failure in
family’s part
 Be sure to analyze failure and acknowledge them to sure that
your time is wisely spent
 Qualitative and quantitative evaluation
 Formative and summative evaluation

18. ADVANTAGES OF THE HOME VISIT
 Home visit provides an excellent opportunity to implement the
nursing process
 Home visits provide an opportunity to study the home and family
situation.
 Home visits provide an opportunity to render service to the family
members at their own surroundings.
 Prompt and proper home visits create a good understanding between
nurse and family and builds good image of nurses.
 Home visits clarify the doubts raised by the family members.

19.  Home visits help to observe family practices and progress of
care given by nurses and others.
 Home visits help to prevent and handling the problems.
 Home visits help the nurses and family members to modify
the ways of their care.
 Home visits are convenient for the patients.
 Home visits facilitate patient control of the setting.
 Home visits are the best option for patients unwilling or
unable to travel
 Home visits provide natural, environment for the discussion of
concerns and needs.

20. PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED DURING HOME VISIT
• Consumes lot of time and energy
• Unforeseen events
• Non-Acceptance
• Problem of local language
• Role Confusion

21. THANK YOU