BACKGROUND: Home-visit guidance has the advantage of assisting child-raising while respecting an individual's lifestyle; however, there are many people who refuse it at present due to individual and family privacy concerns. In addition, such medical services involve individual and financial constraints; thus, the beneficial effects of the service should be clearly presented.
METHODS: During postnatal weeks 16-20, questionnaires were sent by researchers to a group that received home-visit services during postnatal weeks 2-12 to investigate their levels of satisfaction with the services. A different questionnaire was sent to those that did not receive home visits to investigate the reasons for their rejection of the services.
RESULTS: Home-visit services were highly evaluated by those mothers who received them, especially for primiparas to reduce anxiety about and improve confidence in child-raising. Also, a significant difference was observed between the “home-visit” and the “no home-visit” groups when asked, “How much are you willing to pay for home-visit guidance?” Among the “no-home visit” group, mothers who stated less than 1,000 yen and “free of charge”(59.7%) accounted for 75.8% and among the home-visit group, mothers who stated less than 1,000 yen and “free of charge” (26.0%) accounted for 50.9%, and 35.5% of mothers stated from 1,000 to 3,000 yen.
CONCLUSIONS: The level of satisfaction of mothers who received home-visits and the reasons for not receiving visits were investigated. Two problems identified were that information about this program is not provided to all mothers and the timing of home-visits does not meet the needs of mothers.

  The purpose of this research was to clarify factors that make early hospital discharge difficult. We found that this hospital was different from other general hospitals. We repeatedly revised early discharge guidelines and were able to find factors reliable about 24% higher.
  Our findings would contribute to the shortening of hospital stay, the promotion of the efficiency of our work, the strengthening of regional alliances. What we should consider most important is the realization of the discharge that is not forced.

The primary aim of this study was to estimate the number of cancer patients who wanted home death based on the bereaved family survey.A postal survey performed on 1,137 bereaved family members in 4 regions to clarify the degree what they believed that the patient actually died where s/he had wanted on the Good Death Inventory, and to explore the preferred place of death. We calculated estimated number of patients who had wanted home death as a total of (1) the actual number of home death × the percentages of the family members who agreed that the patient actually died where s/he had wanted, and × the actual number of hospital death × the percentages of the family members who disagreed that the patient actually died where s/he had wanted and home was the preferred place of death. Estimated number of cancer patients who wanted home death was 32.8%［95%C.I., 31.7, 33.9］ in the surveyed regions, and 31.2%［95%C.I., 31.1, 31.4］ for national data.