Demands of community patients with chronic diseases for continuing nursing care

Objective To study the demands among community patients with chronic diseases for continuing nursing care .Methods Totals of 200 patients from five community health service centers were recruited into the study and investigated with self-designed questionnaire .Results Out 200 questionnaires , totals of 178 questionnaires were taken back , with effective rate of 89%.Among 178 patients, 21.4%（38/178） of patients chose “good understanding of continuing nursing care”, 80.9%（144/178） of patients chose“hoping to continue to receive care after discharge”;38.2%（68/178） of patients were “not sure the effect of continuing nursing care”;77.5%（138/178） of patients worried about their own expense for continuing nursing care .The demands for continuing nursing care included knowledge of safe medication and diseases , blood pressure control and self-monitoring, dietary guidelines, knowledge related to the disease , blood lipid and blood glucose control and monitoring, rehabilitation exercise and so on .Only 8.4%（15/178） of patients hoped that nursing care after discharge was provided by community nurses .Conclusions Community patients have a high demand for continuing nursing care , while difficulties exist in implementing of continuing nursing care at present .It is necessary to make fully use community nursing human resources to develop continuing nursing care model of hospital-community-family. Key words: Chronic diseases; Health services needs and demand; Continuing nursing care