Pairing students for community health nursing home visits

Faculty paired community health nursing (CHN) students for home visits to reduce students' anxiety and enhance their learning of the nursing process. The pairing method involved 60 students over a three-semester period. The process is described and advantages and disadvantages are analyzed. The net results are favorable. Faculty found that students' fear of entering an unfamiliar home was supplanted by a sense of challenge at working collaboratively with a peer. Furthermore, the pairing experience increased students' confidence in making decisions about client care and offered them more physical safety when visiting high-crime urban settings. Students felt positive about the increased safety and expressed greater confidence in their CHN role and their application of the nursing process.