Objective

Public health nurses foster self-help groups that are intended to solve health problems and improve the health of older people. This study aims to clarify how public health nurses foster such self-help groups.

Design

This is a qualitative study that utilizes one-to-one semi-structured interviews.

Sample

The participants comprised 11 full-time public health nurses who had experience in fostering self-help groups and had at least 5 years of experience as public health nurses.

Measurements

Interview transcripts were created, and a qualitative analysis was performed inductively.

Results

In total, 33 themes, 14 theme clusters, and four categories were extracted. The categories were as follows: coordinating with relevant occupations and residents to collect community information and solve health problems, organizing classes from health promotion to member-centered group activities, ensuring group development support and establishing a support system, and supporting leaders behind the scenes.

Conclusions

Public health nurses begin by gathering information about a given community and sharing local health problems with public health authorities and residents. The nurses build trusting partnerships with members and assign appropriate roles to them to better address their problems. Additionally, the nurses provide indirect group support by encouraging leaders as needed.