THE CLIENT-NURSE RELATIONSHIP AS EXPERIENCED BY PUBLIC-HEALTH NURSES - TOWARD BETTER COLLABORATION

This article presents the findings of a study concerned with the clien t-nurse relationship in public health nursing settings. The purpose wa s to look at the ways the client and public health nurse cooperate and to see what makes for efficient collaboration. A phenomenological-her meneutic approach was adopted. The data consisted of essays written by the public health nurses and focused interviews, which were analyzed by phenomenological method The outcome is an interpretive description of public health nurses' experiences of collaboration with their clien ts. Successful collaboration requires an active and committed involvem ent on both sides and a joint effort to help the client cope with his/ her situation. This means there has to be not only a shared understand ing of the ultimate goal of nursing, but also open and sincere confide nce-building interaction for the creation of a sense of confidentialit y and trustworthiness. The results suggest that the contents of the cl ient-nurse relationship are extremely important to both sides of the d yad: both the client's well-being and the public health nurse's feelin g of succeeding on the job will depend to a great extent on the kind o f relationship they construct. Future research should also look at how clients experience their relationship with the public health nurse.