Nurses’ experiences of home visiting new parents in rural and regional communities in Australia: a descriptive qualitative study
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-07-2015-0023 |
| Published date | 19 September 2016 |
| Date | 19 September 2016 |
| Pages | 204-216 |
| Author | Jennifer Anne Fraser,Marie Hutchinson,Jessica Appleton |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Children's services,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Children/youth,Parents,Education,Early childhood education,Home culture,Social/physical development |
Nurses’experiences of home visiting new
parents in rural and regional communities
in Australia: a descriptive qualitative study
Jennifer Anne Fraser, Marie Hutchinson and Jessica Appleton
Jennifer Anne Fraser is an
Associate Professor at the
Sydney Nursing School, The
University of Sydney, Sydney,
Australia.
Marie Hutchinson is based at
the Health and Human
Sciences, Southern Cross
University, Lismore, Australia.
Jessica Appleton is based at
the Sydney Nursing School,
The University of Sydney,
Sydney, Australia.
Abstract
Purpose –Child and family health (CAFH) services in Australia initially provide at least one nurse-home-visit
following the birth of a child. Planning and referral then commences for the on-going provision of appropriate
services to families. Unfortunately, services in rural and regional communities in Australia can be fragmented
and poorly resourced. Little is known about CAFH nurses’experiences of working with families in these
communities. The purpose of this paper is to examine the way CAFH nurses work within a universal health
service model that may be compromised by isolation, discontinuity and fragmentation.
Design/methodology/approach –Focus groups with 26 CAFH nurses from five rural, two regional and one
urban community in New South Wales (NSW), Australia were conducted. A secondary, thematic analysis of
the qualitative data were undertaken to reflect on change and continuity in the field of universal CAFH
services. Analysis was driven by two key research questions: How do CAFH nurses experience their role in
universal home-based CAFH services within rural and regional areas of Australia and, what unique factors are
present in rural and regional areas that impact on their CAFH nursing role?
Findings –The experience of the CAFH nurses as presented by these data revealed a role that was
family centred and concerned for the welfare of the family, yet compromised by the need to meet the
disproportionately complex needs of families in the absence of a strong network of services. The opportunity
to present the findings provides insight into the way in which familiesengage with available services in isolated
communities. CAFH nurses in the study attempted to maintain service integrity by adapting to the unique
context of their work.
Originality/value –It is important to understand the mechanisms through which CAFH nurses operate to
work effectively with families referred to their service. This paper describes the way in which CAFH nurses
work with families not meeting the threshold for more intensive and targeted home-visiting service delivery in
rural and regional communities of NSW, Australia.
Keywords Australia, Child protection, Qualitative methods, Prevention, Nursing, Early intervention,
Child and family health, Rural nursing, Universal child health service, Parenting programmes
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In Australia, child and family health (CAFH) services deliver a wide range of community and
home-based nursing and other early intervention and prevention services to healthy children and
their parents from birth and throughout childhood. These services are provided free to all families.
Services differ slightly across the states and territories (see Schmied et al., 2015), but generally
families with complex service needs and cumulative risk factors for child abuse and neglect
receive targeted programmes, usually in the form of sustained home-visiting (HV) programmes
such as MECSH in New South Wales (NSW) (Kemp et al., 2011) and Family Care in Queensland
Received 12 July 2015
Revised 28 December 2015
24 March 2016
Accepted 4 July 2016
PAGE204
j
JOURNAL OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES
j
VOL. 11 NO. 3 2016, pp. 204-216, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660 DOI 10.1108/JCS-07-2015-0023
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