A comparison pilot study of Public Health Field Nursing home visitation program interventions for pregnant Hispanic adolescents

Objective: Improve pregnancy outcomes in first-time Hispanic adolescent mothers and their infants. Setting: Urban communities in Orange County, California. Design and Methods: A comparison of the Nurse-Family Partnership pilot study home visitation program with traditional Public Health Field Nursing (PHFN) home visitation. Participants: Two hundred twenty-five Hispanic adolescent mothers and their infants. Interventions: Participants in the control group received the traditional PHFN services; the intervention group received interventions from advanced trained public health nurses. The control group received a minimum of three home visits: one initial client assessment and family profile, one antepartum visit, and one postpartum visit, including newborn assessment. Participants in the intervention group received weekly home visits for the first 4 weeks, followed by visits every other week until delivery, weekly visits for the next 6 weeks, visits every other week until the child was 20 months, and monthly visits until the child was 24 months of age. Results: Preliminary results indicate that home visitation by public health nurses (PHNs) positively affected the health of adolescents mothers and their infants. The incidence of premature births to adolescent mothers in the intervention group was lower than that found in the California population of adolescent mothers. Conclusion: Preliminary results from this program showed that PHN home visitation (control and intervention groups) positively affects the birth outcomes of adolescent mothers and their infants.