Nursing Practice Promoting Community Social Support Networks for the Elderly

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The purpose of this project was to describe the efficient nursing practice by public health nurses (PHNs) promoting community social support networks for the elderly.First, we clarified the relationship between health status and the daily life of the elderly and community social support networks. Data was collected from the interview surveys of home visits to 84 elderly people aged 75-years who lived independently in City A in Japan.Results exhibited that elderly people that had good relationships with family members, friends and neighbors or hobbies and interests displayed more positive feelings about their health conditions. And they also found that the elderly people had more positive feeling about their health conditions not only received support but also provided it.In the second year of the project, we examined nursing practices by PHNs promoting community social support networks for the elderly. We chose 17 case reports that emphasized on public health nursing in promoting community social support networks. From these we selected 5 cases and performed interviews with the PHNs involved about their practices.After analyzing the interview data, we conducted that the following characteristics were vital to efficient nursing practice promoting community social support networks for the elderly; to assess needs or priorities for the elderly to promote networks through PHN's routine community activities, to support or encourage volunteers and leaders in the community who played important roles in the activities for the elderly.