Testing innovative nursing care: home intervention with depressed rural women

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is common among women and especially so among the disadvantaged. Despite this, nurses' roles in the treatment of MDD have been described only recently and have received little systematic evaluation. Testing of nursing efficacy in treating MDD is critical because nurses predominate among professionals in health care institutions typically accessed by women. In this article, I describe a research demonstration project to test a short-term nursing intervention for disadvantaged depressed rural women. The Women's Affective Illness Treatment (WAIT) Program has been implemented to eliminate depressive morbidity and develop specific self-care and prevention skills. Impoverished, premenopausal rural women with MDD participate in one of two experimental approaches. Several outcome and treatment effectiveness variables are monitored pre- and posttreatment for a period of 12 months.