Doctoral project: Developments in out-patient nursing in the Federal Republic and the GDR 1950-1995 (Barbara Randzio, M.A.)

The quality of out-patient nursing was not only ensured by the abilities of the nursing staff, but also depended directly on the scope given to them by the respective health services. The apparently diffuse field of nursing was carried out in a social, political, economic and cultural context. Nursing as a complex act must therefore be placed in and regarded from this historical context. The study investigates continuity and change in the general conditions, the work content and the forms of communication as well as in the co-operation between in- and out-patient departments. After 1950, with regional delays, modifications to the community welfare work which had developed from church traditions took place in both German states. The history of out-patient nursing is analysed and compared using the example of two rural areas in East and West Germany.