Home care nurses' descriptions of important agency attributes

To identify attributes of home care agencies described by nurses as important to their professional practice and job satisfaction.

Seven focus groups with home health care staff nurses were conducted at 6 home care agencies located in three states in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. A total of 58 home care nurses participated in the study.

Transcriptions of tape-recorded focus groups were subjected to open and axial coding techniques.

Six major categories and eight subcategories of organizational attributes described by home care nurses as important to the support of their practice and job satisfaction were identified.

Attributes described by home health nurses were not only similar to those described by hospital-based nurses as reported in the "magnet hospital" literature, but they also were consistent with key concepts described in theories of professional workforce organization. Findings provide insight into developing workplace environments to support home care nurses.