NURS1102 - Community Nursing: Risks and Safety During Home Visits

This report identifies the risks associated with community nursing, particularly during home visits, where nurses may encounter violence, aggression, unsafe environments, and ethical dilemmas. It draws on literature highlighting instances of nurses being locked in homes, facing violence from patients with mental health issues, and struggling with palliative care decisions. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for healthcare organizations to implement safety policies, provide self-defense training, and equip nurses with safety alarms to mitigate these risks. The presented solution is available on Desklib, where students can find a variety of past papers and solved assignments.

RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH COMMUNITY
VISITING IN NURSING DOMAIN

Issue:
Community nursing mainly denotes community nurses visiting
communities as well as the homes of the affected patients in order to
provide home care services to the patients according to the needs of
the patients. The presentation is about the difficulties that are faced by
nurses while working in community settings.

Key points of literature:
• Literature titled ‘Informal caregivers of patients with COPD: Home Sweet Home?’
suggested that nursing staff had scary experience upon being locked in family home and
was not given the opportunity to leave(Nakken et al., 2015).
• Article titled ‘Job demands–resources predicting burnout and work engagement among
Belgian home health care nurses: a cross-sectional study’ stated that nurses are exposed to
certain unpredictable events in house of the patients that commonly include violence and
aggression (Vander et al., 2016).
• Literature titled ‘'Special Steps': An Effective Visiting/Walking Program for Persons with
Cognitive Impairment’ elaborated on the fact that mental health nurses are common
sufferers of aggression and violence from their clients who have been diagnosed with
mental health diseases(Wishart et al., 2016).
• Article titled ‘Communicating with patients and their families about palliative and end-of-
life care: comfort and educational needs of nurses’ stated that nurses also face confusion
and dilemma while providing palliative care to patients in community settings (Moir et al.,
2015).
• Literature named ‘“Making Do” decisions: How home healthcare personnel manage their
exposure to home hazards’ stated that the neglect and abuse that dementia patients are
subjected to also makes it difficult for the nurses to deliver proper care services(Wills et al.,
2016).

Conclusion:
• Healthcare organizations need to develop safety policies and organizational
protocols that would ensure safety and security of the nurses
• Should send male members along with female nurses to keep them safe from
physical and sexual assaults, being locked up, ill-treated and others (Nakken et al.,
2015)
• Nurses should be trained with immediate self-defense actions and should be given
safety alarm sensors that can be monitored by professionals in the healthcare
centers.

References:
• Nakken, N., Janssen, D. J., van den Bogaart, E. H., Wouters, E. F.,
Franssen, F. M., Vercoulen, J. H., & Spruit, M. A. (2015). Informal
caregivers of patients with COPD: Home Sweet Home?. European
Respiratory Review, 24(137), 498-504.
DOI: 10.1183/16000617.00010114
• Oliver, G. M., Pennington, L., Revelle, S., & Rantz, M. (2014). Impact of
nurse practitioners on health outcomes of Medicare and Medicaid
patients. Nursing Outlook, 62(6), 440-447.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2014.07.004
• Park, H. R., Park, E., & Park, J. W. (2016). Barriers to chronic pain
management in community-dwelling low-income older adults: Home-
visiting nurses’ perspectives. Collegian, 23(3), 257-264.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colegn.2015.05.002

Thank you