Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to A E While.
The emergence of health visiting is traced through available historical material. It is argued that the evidence supports the view that the role of central government was limited and that health visiting owes its emergence to the pioneer work of able medical officers of health.
A survey of health visitor and child health clinic records revealed an association between place of residence and socioeconomic factors and early infant feeding practice. Bottle feeding was associated with poor social circumstance while breast feeding was associated with higher social classes and their socioeconomic attributes. Health visiting home support was limited in its extent and there was no statistical evidence of positive discrimination towards bottle- or breast-feeding families. However, breast-feeding parents made significantly greater use of the child health clinics and so sought more health professional support in the early months of their infants' lives.
A survey of health visitor records has indicated that approximately one-third of pregnancies resulting in live births are unplanned. The data further revealed an association between planning of pregnancies and socio-demographic variables and use of preventive health care for infants.
A small interview study (n = 40) is described. Families were generally satisfied with their health care experience although they expressed a clear preference for home care as compared with hospitalization. A significant group of parents identified lack of information as a shortcoming of hospital care.
A small-scale telephone survey of day surgery patients' (n = 30) experience of pain, nausea and vomiting, wound healing and fatigue during the 7 days following discharge and their views of the service is described. Respondents who had undergone either varicose vein stripping (n = 15) or arthroscopy (n = 15) were interviewed using a semi-structured interview schedule. The findings indicated that most respondents expressed satisfaction with their recovery despite some evidence of postoperative morbidity. The majority of the sample indicated that they had received adequate information to enable them to cope at home and qualified nurses on the day unit were identified as a primary source of information. Following discharge, GPs or the day unit were key points of contact. The findings of this study, together with previous research, highlight important areas for further action by health professionals if this service is to be delivered effectively and efficiently.
An in-depth study of the experience of 10 children admitted for day surgery revealed that parents received little information before the admission and that this was not compensated for by the information given on admission. Most of the children underwent excessively long pre-operative fasts and only three out of the 10 children were actually discharged on the day of their operation.