Care givers' perceptions of the role of the home care therapist in non-oral feeding intervention in failure to thrive patients

As the nation tries to curtail spending in the health care industry, more physicians are using home health care to provide intervention for their patients. Infants who are deprived of oral feeding for prolonged periods experience great difficulty establishing oral feeding while they are recovering from medical problems. The purpose of this naturalistic inquiry study is to investigate care givers' perceptions of the home care therapist role in feeding intervention. Interviews using open-ended questions were completed with five care givers of Failure to Thrive children. Data was transcribed in narrative form. Results indicate that care givers valued the intervention that they received from home care therapist and they would recommend home care to other families when appropriate.