Caring in community nursing practice: Inductive content analysis reveals an inter‐dynamic system between patients and nurses

Abstract

Aims and objectives:To examine the understanding of caring in the practice of community nursing from the perspectives of patients and nurses.Background: An increasing population of patients with chronic disease has produced a need for humanistic caring in communities. As a result, caring has become a core value of community nursing professionals. However, community nurses meet many difficulties in trying to practice person-centred care with their clients. Furthermore, most community nurses-especially in China-lack systematic education and training about caring because the practical meaning of caring in community practice is unknown.Design: The qualitative study described herein employed inductive content analysis.Methods: Eleven community patients with chronic disease and fifteen community nurses who were nominated as a caring nurse from different community clinics in Beijing, China, participated in thirty-one interviews during January to August in 2018. Nine documents from the interviewed nurses were collected. Both interview data and documents were analysed using strategies of inductive content analysis.The COREQ checklist was used.Results: Patients and their corresponding nurses described a wide range of caring experiences that were generalised into 28 concepts. Caring emerged as an inter-dynamic system that comprised the foundation and quality of a caring relationship, the caring philosophy and behaviours of interactions, and positive feedback from caring interactions. A relationship-based framework of caring in community nursing practice was constructed. Conclusions:Identifying this systematic concept of caring provides insights that are applicable to the creation of targeted management, education and practice interventions to ultimately enhance the quality of community health care-in China or elsewhere.

Barriers to community healthcare delivery in urban China: a nurse perspective

“…This, in turn, fuelled patients’ distrust of community nurses and their care, generating a vicious circle of distrust within community healthcare. Trust is essential to care relationships, and a trust-based care relationship helps improve the effectiveness of community health services (T. Zhang et al, 2020 ; Yue et al, 2020 ). A lack of trust-based care relationships created a bottleneck in community health services delivery.…”

“…Male nurses see hospitals offering speciality, intensive, and emergency nursing activities (Phillips & Norman, 2020 ) as the “land of dreams” that enables them to pursue career success. In contrast, community nursing remains superficial and less advanced as it focuses on general practice and primary care (Yue et al, 2020 ), making male nurses feel that their uniquely masculine power and abilities are “wasted”.…”

“…With little awareness about its practice, residents are suspicious of service quality, further reinforcing their avoidance of community healthcare (Du et al, 2015 ). Relationships between service providers and users are intermittent, compromising the ability of community healthcare organizations to provide continuing care (T. Zhang et al, 2020 ; Yue et al, 2020 ). The handling of patient information remains substandard, jeopardizing treatment feedback and follow-up examinations (H. Li et al, 2016 ; Liu et al, 2021 ).…”

Exploring the needs and coping strategies of family caregivers taking care of dying patients at home: a field study

“…Purposive sampling was applied to select families of terminally ill patients [ 33 ]. The inclusion criteria were adult family caregivers who (a) caring/cared for patients at home for more than three months; (b) caring/cared for patients whose life expectancy of approximately six months or less as estimated by two physicians; (c) were able to provide informed consent.…”

Barriers to Community-Based Primary Health Care Delivery in Urban China: A Systematic Mapping Review

“…A significant barrier identified during our syntheses was the intermittent and superficial care relationships between care providers and users. A germane, dynamic, and sustained care relationship between the two parties has yet to be established [41]. Not surprisingly, this superficiality undermines the generalized trust users have in providers [42].…”