2016 Volume 13 Issue 1 Pages 72-79
When patients leave hospital and wish to continue to receive medical care and treatments at home, what kind of support and aid should be provided by ward nurses to the patients concerned and their family members?
Nurses' opinions and views and cases of patients and their families were examined by reference to Anne Bishop’s perspective of nursing. The analysis showed the following. Firstly, nurses tend to perceive home care purely in a medical framework; they have some difficulty in understanding that the contexts of everyday living for patients and their families differ from those of medical providers. In the second place, adhering too much to nursing manuals at hospital, nurses tend to have pre-conceived notions of patients' abilities, while elderly invalids find it hard to go through advanced procedures which nurses require. This creates a gap between techniques that nurses consider necessary and those that patients’ families want to know about. In the third place, nurses are considerate towards patients and their families, get along with them cordially, and collaborate closely with home care specialists. To conclude, it is necessary that nurses have a clear notion of the situations which patients and their families are set in and confronted with in their every-day life at home, and by doing so, offer aids and assistance according to their desires and wishes.
