Acıbadem Üniversitesi Sağlık Bilimleri Dergisi

Öz

Objectives: This study was conducted to examine the ideas and opinions of nursing students about the home visiting practice which was implemented as a part of their “Public Health Nursing” course. Method: The population of this descriptive study was comprised of final year students enrolled in a Public Health Nursing course of a nursing faculty. Students carried out home visits as a part of their internship program for three days in a week over the spring semester for ten weeks. A total of 143 students participated in this study. In this context, a total of 429 families were visited by the students. A statistical software package was used to evaluate the data. Percentages were used to assess the variables. Chi-square test was performed to determine the difference between the years of the study. Findings: Of the students, 43% said ‘health education’ was the most fulfilled nursing role they achieved during their home visits, while 35% said ‘communication’, 15% ‘ensuring healthy change’ and 5% ‘care’. When for the first time they attended a home visit program, 15.9% of the students reported that they experienced negative feelings, 66.7% felt nervous, 47.8% got excited, 44.9% felt afraid, 21% felt positive feelings. Conclusions and Recommendation: Nursing students contributed to the protection and improvement of the health of individuals, families and communities during home visits. Nursing students initially stated negative opinions and thoughts about home visits but they overcame their anxieties and fears, and made a range of positive contributions to the families in promoting their health. In this context, it was seen that the students need to be prepared psychologically for the internship program beforehand, and that educating students with practical exercises and with realistic role-play activities in the appropriate environments would have a positive effect on the students’ preparedness for their internship program. Such realistic preparation for the home visit portion could only have a positive effect on the whole program. The most important suggestion of this study is to provide nursing students of nursing faculties/programs who will carry out home visits within their internship program with practical exercises and role-play activities in simulated environments before the start of their home visits to enhance their preparedness, and that this practical training before home visits should be adopted as a standard practice.