Abstract
The purpose of this study is to clarify the role awareness and expectations of public health nurses and home visiting nurses regarding family care nursing following the introduction of Long Term Care Insurance. We prepared a questionnaire using Likert Scale for 35 items of family care nursing, extracting items through interviews with public health nurses and home visiting nurses who were caring for the same family. Five questionnaires were sent to each municipality and Home Nursing Care Station in Kanagawa Prefecture and the results were compared by significance tests. We obtained responses from 491 nurses at 129 facilities. In regard to the role of public health nurses, team building with other professionals and informal networking, etc., were higher in scale, whereas in the role of home visiting nurses, care at stage changes in patient's illness, the building a good relationship with the caregiver and psychological support, etc., were higher. The highest ten items of role awareness and expectations were almost identical between public health nurses and home visiting nurses. However, 30 items regarding role awareness for home visiting nurses were significantly higher than expectations of public health nurses, whereas only four role awareness items for public health nurses were significantly different from expectations of home visiting nurses. And in 29 items both types of nurses saw differences between their own role and that of the others. Interpreting these results, we concluded that both public health nurses and home visiting nurses are aware that their roles differ and are oriented to effective role sharing.
