2011 Volume 59 Issue 3 Pages 169-175
“Infant home visiting service for all houses” is a national project begun in 2007 in order to support isolated and depressive mothers during child care. The ultimate purpose is the prevention of child abuse. This study aimed to investigate the state of this project in Nagano Prefecture in 2009.
Questionnaires were requested from 80 local communities in Nagano Prefecture to investigate the current states of this project, including the start date, first visitors’ occupation, visit time, method of evaluation of mother and child, and second visitors’ occupation.
As a result, 61 local communities among 79 respondents were found to be conducting this project (76.3%). Some other local communities included the content within their newborn visits project. Public health nurses played the main role in the initial visit to a mother and infant. Subjective and objective evaluations and/or judgments about their second visits for anxious mothers and children were conducted in 33 (54.1%) and 20 local communities (32.8%), respectively, at their initial visit. Second visits were also conducted mainly by public health nurses.
From these results, home visiting methods were seen to be conducted in various ways in each local community in Nagano Prefecture. It is suggested that the roles of visiting all houses and the home visiting of newborn babies should be clarified and that a standardized home visiting program including a program for training visitors seems to be necessary.
