Assistenza Infermieristica Domiciliare in Italia AIDOMUS-IT: i dati preliminari

Introduction Home care in Italy is a health care option aimed at providing long-term care directly in patients' homes, but may vary across regions, as each region is responsible for their organization. Objectives To describe the organization of home care nursing across Italy, in terms of general characteristics of the services provided and set up a national network of contacts and collaborations with community health services. Materials and methods A cross-sectional descriptive observational study conducted between November 2022 and March 2023. The questionnaire was administered online to the nursing managers of the community services. Results Out of 106 local health authorities (LHAs), 77 (72.6%) participated in this study. In terms of resident population, this included a coverage of 75.3%. Of 15 services in each LHA, 9 were available on average. Community Health Centres, Intermediate Care Centres, and Community Operations Centres were evenly spread in 48.1%, 41.6%, and 50.6% of the LHAs respectively. Mean waiting time was 2 days for the first visit and first access. Staff were prevalently employees. Nurses and healthcare assistants had the highest average age. Discussion and conclusions Community services were widespread, had varying structures, and differed across Italy. This first phase of the study enabled to establish a national network of contacts with 76 managers and contact persons of the community nursing services and with over one hundred other nurses in the community. The final results of this study will enable to adapt home care to the demands of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) and the population