A study of consumer-defined need amenable to community nursing intervention.

This paper describes the first stage of a research project investigating unmet needs for community nursing services. The research analyses the relationships between differences in perception of valid needs between the public and staff, ways of working and organizational constraints on community nursing practice, and the incidence and nature of consumer-defined unmet needs. The aim of the first stage was to analyse the level and kind of consumer-defined need amenable to community nursing intervention and identify possible shortfalls in current provision. The study used a postal questionnaire and samples were selected using proportional, stratified random sampling from a Community Health Index. The sample size was 1770 and the response rate 38%. Analysis involved frequency counts for all variable data and statistical analysis of relationships between variables, using the chi-square test with the level of significance set at 5%. Analysis of the questionnaire identified possible latent need in relation to activities of daily living and health problems. The 57-69 and 70+ age groups were found to have the highest level of self-perceived difficulties with the above, many of which were said to be unmet. Fewer respondents in the younger age groups experienced these difficulties; however, those who did were less likely to be receiving help. In most cases, respondents with perceived unmet needs had never sought help. In relation to community nursing, this may be associated with the lack of knowledge and misconceptions about the roles of community nurses which were identified from questionnaire responses.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)