Role identity and job satisfaction of community health nurses

Although many efforts have been made to articulate the nature of community health nursing practice, there continues to be a great deal of confusion about the roles and functions of community health nurses. This article reports a descriptive research study of the role identity and job satisfaction of 43 staff community health nurses practicing in home health care, generalized public health nursing, combined public health/home health care (PH/HHC), and specialized programmes. Although differences were found, the home health, generalized public health, and PH/HHC nurses shared a similar core identity. The major differences were seen for the nurses working in specialized programmes. No significant differences were found in job satisfaction among the four groups.