Research Article
ThePracticeofHomeVisitingbyCommunityHealthNursesasa
PrimaryHealthcareInterventioninaLow-IncomeRuralSetting:A
Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study in the Adaklu District of the
Volta Region, Ghana
Kennedy Diema Konlan ,
1,2
Nathaniel Kossi Vivor,
1
Isaac Gegefe,
1
Imoro A. Abdul-Rasheed,
1
Bertha Esinam Kornyo,
1
and Isaac Peter Kwao
1
1
Department of Public Health Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho, Ghana
2
College of Nursing, Yonsei University, 50-1, Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea
Correspondence should be addressed to Kennedy Diema Konlan; dkkonlan@uhas.edu.gh
Received 11 September 2020; Revised 15 March 2021; Accepted 17 March 2021; Published 24 March 2021
Academic Editor: Omer Toprak
Copyright © 2021 Kennedy Diema Konlan et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
Background. Home visit is an integral component of Ghana’s PHC delivery system. It is preventive and promotes health practice
where health professionals render care to clients in their own environment and provide appropriate healthcare needs and social
support services. is study describes the home visit practices in a rural district in the Volta Region of Ghana. Methodology. is
descriptive cross-sectional study used 375 households and 11 community health nurses in the Adaklu district. Multistage sampling
techniques were used to select 10 communities and study respondents using probability sampling methods. A pretested self-
designed questionnaire and an interview guide for household members and community health nurses, respectively, were used for
data collection. Quantitative data collected were coded, cleaned, and analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences into
descriptive statistics, while qualitative data were analysed using the NVivo software. ematic analysis was engaged that embraces
three interrelated stages, namely, data reduction, data display, and data conclusion. Results. Home visit is a routine responsibility
of all CHNs. e factors that influence home visiting were community members’ education and attitude, supervision challenges,
lack of incentives and lack of basic logistics, uncooperative attitude, community inaccessibility, financial constraint, and limited
number of staff. Household members (62.3%) indicated that health workers did not adequately attend to minor ailments as 78%
benefited from the service and wished more activities could be added to the home visiting package (24.5%). Conclusion. ere
shouldbetailoredtrainingofCHNsonhomevisitsskillssothattheycouldexpandthescopeofservicesthatcanbeprovided.Also,
community-based health workers such as community health volunteers, traditional birth attendants, and community clinic
attendants can also be trained to identify and address health problems in the homes.
1.Introduction
Home visit practice is a healthcare service rendered by
trained health professionals who visit clients in their own
home to assess the home, environment, and family condition
in order to provide appropriate healthcare needs and social
support services. e home environment is where health is
made and can be maintained to enhance or endanger the
health of the family because individuals and groups are at
risk of exposure to health hazards [1, 2]. At home visit,
conducted in a familiar environment, the client feels free and
relaxed and is able to take part in the activity that the health
professional performs [1]. It is possible to assess the client’s
situation and give household-specific health education on
sanitation, personal hygiene, aged, and child care. e
important role the health professional plays during home
visits (HV) cannot be overemphasized, and this led Ghana to
adopt HV as a cardinal component of its preventive
Hindawi
e Scientific World Journal
Volume 2021, Article ID 8888845, 11 pages
https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/8888845