A Description of a Public Health Role for Health Visitors

[摘要] The term "public health nursing" was introduced to the UK before a definition was generally agreed. Consequently, there was confusion over the use of the term "public health" in relation to nursing as a whole and health visiting in particular. SNMAC (1995) believed that health visitors had a particular public health role because of their orientation to health promotion in relation to individual and community need. However, it was not clear whether community-focused health promotion activity could legitimately be described as a current public health role of health visitors. Taking "public health" to mean a population perspective, the purpose of the study was to develop an understanding of health visitors' public health role by examining the practices and processes of community-based health visitors. In addition, the relevance of a community-focused health visiting role was established in relation to current practice and policy in public health, primary care, health promotion and social services. Data were collected from health visitors who worked with community-focused remits in Scotland and England using face-to-face, semi-structured interviews within an ethnographic framework. Transcriptions of interviews were analysed by an inductive process of identifying themes, patterns, concepts, contrasts and irregularities. Reliability and validity were sought through a reflexive process whereby the researcher maintained awareness of her involvement with the data. A model of a health visiting role was proposed that emphasised a population or community approach, and employed a range of methods of working drawn from generic health visiting, public health and community work.

[发布机构] University:University of Glasgow

[关键词] Public health, Health care management