Patients’ satisfaction received from nursing staff in the Home Care Programme run by the Ministry of Health in Cyprus

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the home care patients’ satisfaction received from the nursing staff in the public home care program in Cyprus. Patients’ satisfaction has become an important part in evaluating the quality of health care services. Patients are the ones who can identify better than anyone else the aspects of nursing care which need improvement. Home care services are quite new and still developing in Cyprus while the need for these services is increasing rapidly. This study, utilized the QPP survey questionnaire, in depth semi-structured interviews and observations. The questionnaire was delivered to the home care patients who received long term care during the period of February 2011 to May 2011. A purposive sample was used for the interviews of the patients, the nursing staff and the management staff of the home care program and for the observations of the home care visits. The results of this study showed that the home care patients of the public home care program in Cyprus are very satisfied from the services they receive from the home care nursing staff. The quality of care, QPP index was found of the highest score in all items of the questionnaire. This study revealed high standards in the elements relating to the humane approach, the medical competence, the information and advising provided to the patients. At the same time, this study identified a deficiency in the abilities of the nursing staff to provide psychological support in difficult cases and the patients’ inadequate control of their medical care according to their desires rather than by the procedures of their home care nurse. It also identified the need of the home care patients for help in the activities of daily living (ADLs). Additionally, this study surfaced the aspects of the nursing care which the home care patients consider more important and highlighted the characteristics of an ideal home care nurse through the patients’ eyes; placing the humane approach as the most important aspect, followed by the psychological support provided and then by the nursing knowledge. A deviation was identified between the nursing and management views, with the later placing the nursing knowledge as first, followed by leadership skills and then by the humane approach. This study, also identified those problematic areas of the program which negatively influence the nursing services; these were the absence of a team of health professionals in the program, the limited operating hours, the non-implementation of the concept of prescribing nurses, the non- eligibility of the nurses to refer the patients to other health professionals, inadequate technology, insufficient financial support of the program, and the cumbersome procedures of the public sector. Home care patients’ satisfaction from the nursing staff is very high; yet there are some areas which need improvement. Recommendations emanated from the project include the enhancement of the nursing undergraduate and post graduate education in home care nursing, with courses and workshops on the psychology of home care patients, on gerontology, on leadership and communication skills. Recommendations also include individual and organizational development interventions for providing more support to the home care nurses, higher quality of care to the home care patients within a client-centred environment and feedback strategies.