Nurses' application of the components of family nursing conversations in home health care: a qualitative content analysis.
Susanne Broekema, Wolter Paans, Petrie F Roodbol and 1 others
PMID 31250933WHAT IT FOUND
Home care nurses applied 12 family conversation components in real practice, but skipped or adapted them when urgent care needs took priority.
Joint goal-setting and acknowledging pain were common; explicitly discussing expectations and challenging limiting beliefs were harder and often omitted.
Key findings
01Nurses adapted the prescribed components to fit the immediate care situation, often prioritizing urgent issues over structural tasks like drawing genograms or setting conversation goals.
02Components focused on strengths and shared problems were applied naturally, whereas challenging constraining beliefs and setting explicit conversation expectations were reported as difficult or were forgotten.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study observed nurses who were new to this specific intervention, so their struggles may reflect a learning curve rather than inherent flaws in the model. Only audio recordings were analyzed, so non-verbal cues that might have supported or hindered the conversation were missed. The sample was small (10 nurses, 17 families) and specific to home healthcare in one region, limiting generalizability to other settings like hospitals. The study describes how nurses applied the components, not whether the conversations actually improved family health or reduced caregiver burden.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Centre of Expertise Healthy Ageing at Hanze University of Applied Sciences and the Dutch Health insurance company Menzis. The authors declared no conflicts of interest, and the funders had no role in the study design, analysis, or writing.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret the nurses' ability to apply these components as evidence that the conversations improved patient or family outcomes. This study describes the process of delivery, not the effectiveness of the intervention.