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The role of the health visitor: a study conducted in Berkshire, England
Author(s) -
Clark June
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
journal of advanced nursing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.948
H-Index - 155
eISSN - 1365-2648
pISSN - 0309-2402
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2648.1976.tb00425.x
Subject(s) - visitor pattern , psychosocial , welfare , stereotype (uml) , medicine , health care , psychology , gerontology , nursing , family medicine , psychiatry , social psychology , computer science , political science , law , economics , programming language , economic growth
A study of 1057 home visits undertaken by health visitors in Berkshire shows that the range of the health visitor's work is much wider than the stereotype, which portrays health visiting as an activity limited to maternity and child welfare and concerned primarily with physical care. Seventy per cent of the visits were to households containing a young child, 18% were to the elderly, and 12% to other households. The content of the visits was recorded in terms of the topics discussed. Some topics were essentially medical and some were within the scope of the stereotype, but many were topics not traditionally associated with health visiting and there was a considerable psychosocial content. Differences were found between visits recorded by younger and recently qualified health visitors and visits recorded by other health visitors.