Another contribution from Michael Watson, Nottingham.
Research carried out by the National Nursing Research Unit (UK) has revealed that while health visitors deliver real benefits to patients and families, there is a need for more research and better education in order to develop the profession. This scoping study incorporated a narrative review of the research about health visiting practice and distilled information from diverse forms of evidence. Whilst it is a UK report it may be of interest to other public health nurses and those who work on topics such as: assessing health needs: domestic violence; child unintentional injury; and child protection.
Editor’s comment: I have always believed that public health nurses have a major role to play in injury prevention, especially those who visit homes where there are children. I am not certain what a ‘narrative review’ is but it is difficult to imagine that there would not be a need for more research on this topic. If anyone is aware of some solid evidence to this effect I encourage them to post a comment or send the information to me so I can put it on the blog.