Key Areas of Preventive Home Visits and Their Importance for Older Adults: A Scoping Review.
Anna Nivestam, Julia Jansson, Josefine Jöninger and 1 others
PMID 41063448WHAT IT FOUND
Preventive home visits for older adults centred on autonomy, trust, tailored advice and information.
Older adults valued a regular nurse contact, but some healthy or very ill saw little benefit.
Key findings
01The review grouped nursing practice in preventive home visits into four areas: supporting autonomy and independence, creating a relationship, advising to prevent ill health and promote health, and providing helpful information.
02Older adults' perspectives ranged from improved well-being and maintained independence to feeling the visit offered nothing, with some healthy or very ill participants declining it.
03Having the same nurse contact was linked to trust and a sense of security.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The review included only 10 articles, all from Europe, so it may not represent other settings. The search was limited to English or Swedish studies published from 2013 to 2023. Screening, extraction and analysis were done by two district-nurse trainees with limited research experience, although supervised. Some included visits involved multiple professions, so findings are not purely nursing practice. The review's stated aim was to identify key areas and older adults' perspectives, not to test whether visits improve outcomes.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. Funding was named as the research platform for collaboration for health at Kristianstad University and the PROCARE research group at Kristianstad University.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that preventive home visits are proven to improve health or independence for all older adults. This is a scoping review of 10 articles that describes nursing practice and older adults' views, and some participants said the visit offered nothing because they felt too healthy or were too ill to take part.