Abstract
The present situation of infection control strategies in home visit nursing care stations was evaluated using questionnaires at home visit nursing care stations in Tokyo in 2004, and stations in areas outside Tokyo in 2005. Answers were recovered from 134 stations in Tokyo and 523 stations in other areas of Japan outside Tokyo. The results were as follows. 1) Infection control manuals were used at 65.7% of stations in Tokyo and at 77.1% in other areas, and infection control training was given to nurses at 54.5% of stations in Tokyo and at 70.9% in other areas. 2) Nurses were recommended to wash their hands at 74.6% of stations in Tokyo and 72.5% in other areas. Hand washing with running tap water and soap was the most frequently recommended method, followed by waterless hand-washing products. 3) Vaccination was recommended to visiting nurses at 85.8% of stations in Tokyo and at 86.0% in other areas, and most of them recommended influenza vaccine. 4) Half of stations reported that information about infectious disease was not included in their medical instructions. 5) Some stations had users suffering from infections, so were maintaining manuals for infection control and made attempts to study prevention against infection.
Home visit type services are increasing more and more in Japan, so both nurses and other personnel relating to home visit care should cooperate and should receive systematic infection control education
