Health promotion: Facilitators and barriers perceived by district nurses

PURPOSE: To investigate district nurses' (DN) opinions regarding facilitators and barriers in their work with health promotion. METHODS: Qualitative descriptive study. Interviews with a purposeful sampling of 54 DNs. Data were analysed with content analysis. RESULTS: The DNs expressed that nursing was the right profession to work with health promotion, and that it was an important task that was done by no one else. They experienced being stuck between disease-oriented and health promotion work and that priorities were wrong. The focus was not on health promotion and the time DNs could spend with health promotion was limited, and instead they had to perform elementary medical tasks. CONCLUSIONS: Tasks of a medical nature are given priority over health promotion. DNs lack support and no one asked or cared about the results from health promotion activities.