This study aimed to evaluate economic viability of public health center visiting nurse services for the low-income elderly with long-term care needs.

The sample consisted of 252 community dwelling elderly who enrolled in public health center visiting nurse services for three months or more. Data was collected on physical (ADL and IADL) and cognitive impairments of the elderly, contents and frequency of visiting nurse services, cost per visit, and costs of alternative services for long-term care.

The mean score of ADL and IADL levels of the elderly was 2.80.4904, which indicated these patients were mostly independent. Eighty four percent of the elderly subjects were cognitively intact. Among visiting nurse services supplied, providing assessment was 34%, followed by education and counseling 26%, medication 22%, and referral. The mean cost per visit was 17,824.1 won, which transformed into a total cost per person per year of 161,130.2 won. Comparing the cost of a visiting nurse service with those of other long-term care alternatives, the visiting nurse service was the least costly alternative, followed by an outpatient clinic, hospital based home care, and nursing home.

Overall, the results of the study provide evidence of the economic viability of visiting nurse services for the low-income elderly among long-term care alternatives.

This study focused on analysing the workload of visiting nurses based on a health center.

A Prospective descriptive analysis of self-records for workload data from 115 visiting nurses during 4 weeks was done. In addition, a cross-sectional analysis of linked data to grasp the priority of visiting nursing services from 155 visiting nurses at the 25 health centers in Seoul.

Time allocation that was performed on all nursing workload of visiting nurses was identified as follows: First, the inside workload of the health center took up 60% of all visiting nurse activities. Second, providing direct nursing care(caseload) took up 25%. Third, outside nursing activities excluding the caseload provided in the health center took up 15% of all working time. Fourth, the core works to have a high priority among visiting nursing activities were family health assessment, planning and evaluation of a visiting nursing program, personal health assessment, and so forth.

The workload of a visiting nurse suggests that the caseload of visiting nurses in a health center needs to be increased. Also, our results will contribute to baseline data used to establish a proper visiting nurses infrastructure based on the demand of visiting nursing services.

The purpose of this study was to explore the link between health and welfare service and barrier's factors by reviewing the connection between the public health center's visiting nurse and social welfare center's social workers

A survey by mail or a face-to-face interview of 151 visiting nurses in 25 public health centers and 48 social welfare workers in general social welfare centers in Seoul, was preformed from Feb. 12, 2001 to Mar. 15, 2001. The data were analyzed with frequency, percentage, mean value, paired t-test and independent t-test using SPSS/WIN 7.5 program.

1. ‘ The necessity and degree of cooperation with social welfare workers of visiting nurse’ scored average 4.49 and 3.19, and ‘ The necessity and degree of cooperation with visiting nurse and social welfare workers’ scored average 4.81 and 3.15 on the five-point scale ; there was a significant difference between the two variable in visiting nurse and social welfare workers. 2. In barrier's factors which health and welfare service offer to, visiting nurses showed statistically significant higher score than social welfare staff ; ‘ job factor’, ‘ resource factor’, ‘ clients factor’, ‘ individual ability factor’

In order to provide link system that hold clients in common in public health center and social welfare center, it is recommended a case management team should be constructed and educate visiting nurses for case manager.

The purpose of this study was to examine cognitive functions, depression, and life satisfaction among the elderly receiving visiting nursing services.

The subjects of this study consisted of 221 elderly individuals who were receiving visiting nursing services from public health center located in Gyeonggi-do. The Mini-mental State Examination Korea version (MMSE-K), Geriatric Depression Scale-short form-Korea version (GDS-K), and Life Satisfaction Scale were utilized to determine cognitive functions, depression, and life satisfaction. Collected data was analyzed by the SPSS PC Win 12.0 program.

The prevalence of cognitive impairment (MMSE-K≤24) was 86.4%, and the proportion of severe depression (GDS-K≥10) was 22.6%. Older age, lower education, and low income were associated with cognitive impairment, and low education, no religion, and low income were associated with depression. Cognitive function negatively correlated with depression. Life satisfaction level was fairly low and was not associated with any variables.

The high prevalence of cognitive impairment and low life satisfaction status were determined among low-income elderly who were registered at a visiting health care center. Thus, in the future at visiting health care services, efficient and various programs for the elderly should be tried, to improve cognitive functions and reduce depression. Additionally, consistent evaluation studies for those programs will be required.