2009 Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 2_85-2_92
The objective of this study is to show the actual situations of cases in which nurses feel difficulty in taking care of psychiatric patients and their families at home-visit nursing stations and explore the support needs of visiting nurses. The objects were 116 home-visit nursing stations in A prefecture, and 48 stations answered to our questionnaire. We implemented a questionnaire research about the experiences of difficult cases by mailing method and interviewed 10 visiting nurses of 6 cooperative stations about their 13 difficult cases and their support needs. The difficult cases were reported by 14 stations (29.2%) for patients and by 12 stations (25.0%) for families. Also, it was reported that visiting nurses have "the anxiety for the difficulty in understanding psychiatric patients" and their support needs were "the knowledge of the effective way to respond according to each situation" and "nursing advice of psychiatry experts". Detailed countermeasures, consultation services by psychiatric specialists, and network as the support for the relationship of visiting nurses are considered to be required.
