Outcomes for community health nursing practice

The purpose of this study was to develop an easy, practical list of outcomes amenable to community health nursing interventions. This study sought to answer the following question: What outcomes are sensitive to nursing interventions in the community health setting?

Nursing literature discusses many client outcomes. However, available outcome lists are not always sensitive to nursing interventions by community health nurses. Nurses need a precise list to measure client outcomes resulting from contact between nurses and clients in a variety of community health settings.

The study used a modified Delphi technique to ensure adequate response from the subjects. Initially, focus groups generated items for the Delphi questionnaires. Using items from the focus groups, the researchers developed three rounds of questionnaires. In each round, nurses stated a level of agreement with each item as an outcome for community health nurses. Twenty-two community health nurses in one Southeastern state participated in four focus groups. One hundred fifty-two community health nurses returned round 1 questionnaires, 68 nurses returned round 2 questionnaires, and 48 nurses returned round 3 questionnaires.

The researchers grouped the outcomes into four domains: client's psychosocial components of care, client's physiologic components of care, nursing intervention/implementation components of care, and environmental/community safety components of care.

The findings produced an easy, practical list of 48 nursing outcomes for use in decision making and research by community health nurses in all settings.