Home visiting programme for older people with health problems: process evaluation.

Aim: This paper is a report of a process evaluation of the content, patient compliance and participant experiences of a home visiting programme for older people with self-reported health problems.

Background: Systematic home visits by nurses to older people are a public health strategy to improve their functional abilities and prevent institutionalization. Evidence of the usefulness of these visits is conflicting, partly due to a lack of information on the intervention process in these programmes.

Effects of home visits by home nurses to elderly people with health problems: design of a randomised clinical trial in the Netherlands [ISRCTN92017183].

Background: Preventive home visits to elderly people by public health nurses aim to maintain or improve the functional status of elderly and reduce the use of institutional care services. A number of trials that investigated the effects of home visits show positive results, but others do not. The outcomes can depend on differences in characteristics of the intervention programme, but also on the selection of the target population.