Sustained health home visiting can improve families’ social support and community connectedness

Abstract

Background: Home visiting (HV) is a strategy used internationally to address the multiple needs of infants and families at risk of suboptimal health and developmental outcomes. Objectives: Describe nursing interventions and program achievements of a pilot HV program for families living in a highly disadvantaged outer suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Methods: A family partnership model was adopted. Follow-up is reported for 65 of the 75 clients remaining in the program for at least 6 months. Results: Nurses most commonly provided clients with emotional support, information about health and well-being and information on infant development. Clients experienced noteworthy improvements consistent with key objectives – greater access to support services, and increased self-efficacy and social networks. Conclusions: Consistent with the growing body of international literature on the achievements of HV, HV programs can empower vulnerable families to better cope with daily life demands and their family.

Keywords:

• house calls
• self-efficacy
• vulnerable populations
• social support
• social networking
• child development

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the SHHV team for their input into the development and implementation of the evaluation and for data collection, Leendert Moerkerken for developing the database and Rowena Saheb for her assistance with data collection and cleaning.