Date of Graduation

2007

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Abstract

Parish nursing is a new area of community health nursing practice. Parish nurses practice independent, holistic nursing in a faith community and offer a variety of health care services. Few studies have focused on the clients of parish nurses and fewer yet have investigated the experience of choosing the parish nurse for health care services. The purpose of this study was to investigate the experience of choosing the parish nurse for health care services. The setting for the study included three Christian churches with practicing parish nurses. The participants completed a seven item demographic questionnaire followed by a face to face interview with the researcher. The sample size was seventeen participants. The interviews were transcribed by the researcher, and the transcripts were examined for responses to the probes and questions, which were displayed in narrative form. Frequencies and percentages were obtained for the demographic data and the data about health services. The findings were as follows: participants were predominantly 65 years and older (82%), female (71%), white (94%), had a bachelor’s degree (41%), attended church functions more than once a week (59%), and had 3 to 5 close relatives and friends (47%). The most frequent health problem identified was hypertension (82%). The parish nurse service used most often was health screenings (100%). Participants were separated into two groups according to amount of services used. Themes extracted from the interviews with the group using more services were caring relationship and empowerment. All of the participants had a primary care provider and the majority of them (71%) used the parish nurse as an adjunct to their primary care provider. One group of participants seemed to experience a caring relationship with the parish nurses and empowerment. The demographic characteristics, health problems, and services used by all participants were similar. Parish nurses can use the findings of this study to guide their practice. Additional research is needed with parish nursing clients, including replication of this study in other settings.

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