[Community care in home-visit nursing for drug-dependent people--questionnaire survey of home-visit nursing stations].

The present study aimed to clarify the present status of home-visit nursing for drug-dependent people and awareness among their caretakers. A questionnaire was sent to 279 stations that provide home-visit psychiatric nursing care. Among the 89 stations that responded, 24 (26.9%) are currently providing home-visit nursing for drug-dependent patients, while 36 (40.4%) had experience doing so in the past. Although many stations recognized that drug-dependent patients need home-visit nursing, their practices tended to be based on trial and error due to insufficient knowledge about the actual conditions and recovery processes of drug dependence. Compared to stations that had experience with home-visit nursing for drug-dependent patients, stations without such experience were more concerned about the safety of caretakers and their insufficient specialist knowledge about drug dependence.