What Constitutes Patient-Centered Care in Home Care? A Descriptive Study of Home Health Nurses' Attitudes, Knowledge, and Skills

In their seminal paper outlining the proposed Future of Home Care, Landers et al. (2016) stated that “patient-centered care” (PCC) is one of the “pillars” of home care. They then asked the question, what is PCC in home care and how is it measured? A qualitative descriptive study explored the answer to this question. In-depth interviews were conducted with 20 home health nurses to identify how they incorporated patient-centered and culture-sensitive care (CSC) into their assessment and care planning practices. The data were categorized into attitudes, knowledge, and skills (including relationship-building, assessment, and care planning skills) associated with patient-centered/culture-sensitive care. The home health nurses had developed multiple strategies for delivering PCC, despite a lack of education in how to provide this care. They primarily learned their techniques through their caring for patients as unique, highly valued persons and their ability to form warm caring relationships with their patients. Together they painted a portrait of the attitudes, knowledge, and skills needed for PCC and CSC. PCC and CSC are mutually reinforcing concepts essential to the high-quality, equitable care needed to mitigate healthcare disparities prevalent in home healthcare. A teaching resource for incorporating PCC/CSC into home health clinician practice was derived from the data.