Description of public health nursing nutrition assessment and interventions for home-visited women

Objective(s) The purpose of this manuscript was to describe: Public Health Nurse (PHN) home-visited, female client Nutrition Knowledge (K), Behavior (B), and Status (S); the number and types of nutrition interventions PHNs used with these clients; and the types of clients receiving nutrition interventions. Design and sample This descriptive study used PHN-generated Omaha System, electronic health record data from January 2012 to July 2015. The analytic sample contains 558 women who received home visits in a rural Midwestern U.S. county that employed universal nutrition assessment for clients. Measurements Omaha System data included nutrition KBS scores (from 1 = low to 5 = high) and nutrition interventions delivered. Analyses included descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses (means, frequencies, chi-squares, general linear models). Results PHNs assessed nutrition KBS scores for 84.1% of clients; average Nutrition Knowledge was 3.4 (SD = 0.7), Behavior 3.7 (SD = 0.8), and Status 4.3 (SD = 1.0). PHNs provided 0-36 nutrition interventions per client. Nutrition intervention patterns were detected by the type of visit clients received. Conclusions Results suggest home-visited women have room to improve Nutrition KBS and PHNs utilize myriad nutrition interventions. Results also point to opportunities to improve home-visited client care by providing more nutrition interventions, especially to those not receiving interventions, and revising standard care plans to reflect important Case Management nutrition interventions.