Students practice essential components of community health nursing in home health care

Because home health differs from community health nursing, using home health agencies as clinical sites to teach community health nursing may be inappropriate. This retrospective descriptive study compared the perceptions of students who took community health before it included a home health placement with those whose course included home health. Mailed surveys were returned from 28(63.6%) of the 44 students enrolled prior to the home health placements and from 30(60%) of the 50 students enrolled afterwards. Students whose experience included home health rated the home visit experience significantly better in terms of providing them an opportunity to perform health promotion and to care for family as client. They found the course more relevant, felt safer in making home visits, and were more likely to consider working in community health nursing. This study supports using home health agencies as clinical placements for community health nursing if they are supplemented with aggregate-level experiences.