Involvement of family nurses in home visits during an 8-year period encompassing primary healthcare reforms in Poland.

Home visits by doctors and nurses are considered an important indicator of the quality of healthcare. Published data are scarce regarding the role of family nurses in providing professional home care in Central and Eastern European countries that have recently introduced reforms to their primary care systems. The objective of the present study was to describe the involvement of family nurses in home visits in the context of organizational and legal changes in service provision, that is, to analyse the role of the family nurses employed by family doctors (1998) versus family nurses working in autonomous positions (2002 and 2006). The proportion of patients in the community receiving a home visit from a family nurse, the purpose of the family nurse's home visit and patient expectations towards the family nurse were studied. A series of cross-sectional studies were conducted in a small town in northeastern Poland, based on three consecutive surveys taken at 4-year intervals (1998, 2002, 2006, surveys I, II and III, respectively). During each survey, 1000 patients were interviewed (face to face) with structured questionnaires. In 1998, family nurses were employed by family doctors, but by 2002, nurses had established their own practices and held direct contracts with the National Health Fund. A significant increase in the percentage of patients receiving home visits from a family nurse was observed between surveys I and II (12.8% and 30.0%); however, the number of respondents reporting a home visit in survey III decreased to 23.9%. Patients over 75 years of age were the major demographic group receiving family nursing at home. This study suggests that reform of the primary healthcare system in Poland has produced changes in the family nursing system. Independence, contractual obligations and self-employment of Polish family nurses have resulted in their greater participation in home visits.