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District continence nurses’ experiences of their continence service in primary health care
Author(s) -
HÄGGLUND DORIS
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of nursing management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.925
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1365-2834
pISSN - 0966-0429
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2834.2009.01021.x
Subject(s) - teamwork , nursing , feeling , medicine , nursing management , district nurse , qualitative research , health care , psychology , social psychology , social science , sociology , political science , law , economics , economic growth
hägglund d . (2009) Journal of Nursing Management 18, 225–233
District continence nurses’ experiences of their continence service in primary health care Aim The aim of the present study was to describe district continence nurses’ experiences of providing continence services in primary care. Background It has been stated that there is too little research on the experiences of district care nurses who provide continence services. Method Twenty‐two district continence nurses answered a written questionnaire containing three open‐ended main questions. A qualitative content analysis method was used to analyse the texts. Results The district continence nurses’ feelings of maintaining their professionalism were promoted by scheduled patient encounters, patients who participate in assessment of urinary incontinence (UI) and functioning teamwork. The opposite situation, nurses’ feelings of having a lesser degree of professionalism, was associated with not having scheduled patient appointments, patients not participating in assessment of UI and lack of teamwork. Conclusions The district continence nurses lacked the authority to start nurse‐led continence clinics because of the lack of collaborative teamwork, an organization that did not enable nurse‐led scheduled appointments and nurses’ limited view of their own profession. Implications for nursing management Primary health care managers and policy‐makers need to provide an environment that enables interprofessional collaboration so that nurses’ skills can be used to advance patient services; such initiatives could enable district continence nurses to reach their full potential.