[Characteristics of public health nursing care according to the age of the patients. Analysis of data gathered in the cantons of Vaud and Fribourg (Switzerland)].

This is a descriptive presentation according to patient age (between 41 and 100 years of age) of data collected during an activity study among 130 public health nurses in two Swiss cantons (total population 700,000). Are increasing with age the proportions of home visits (as compared with health center visits), of requests for care coming from the family (rather than the patient), of basic nursing care (hygiene, mobilization) as the major motive for the care request, the number of basic care acts performed and of technical acts such as bladder care (catheter, instillation). Conversely, characteristics the frequency of which decreases with age are for example some technical acts such as injections and taking of blood samples, and proportion of visits after which no control is planned. Elements for which proportions remain similar across the five age groups considered include initial care request by a physician or a hospital, technical nursing acts as the major reason for the request, most of the activities called "help, detection/case study and prevention", and the referral rate to a physician. These results represent a general picture of the observed trends, which will be studied in detail elsewhere.