Health promotion today is often confused with health education. When nurses are implementing health promotion in practice, an understanding of what health promotion is must be identified. According to the World Health Organization, health promotion is defined as, “the process of enabling people to increase control over, and to improve, their health. It moves beyond a focus of individual behavior towards a wide range or social and environmental interventions.” (“Health promotion”, 2013) health education is a very limited topic compared to health promotion and nurses use the terms interchangeably when in reality health promotion is much more than just providing education for patients. Broken down into three categories, health promotion deals with the disease process on an individual level. Primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of promotion focus on different stages of the disease process starting with prevention and ending with restoring maximum function with already established diseases.
The purpose of health promotion in nursing practice is to increase the quality of life. Nurses have the most personal interaction with patients in the medical field; therefore, every interaction with a patient must be turned into a teaching moment. Upon assessing the patients’ needs, they’re able to identify actual and/or potential problems using those as starting points for education while assisting patients in changing behaviors and using reinforcements to improve the patients’ condition. In this initial assessment, nurses are able to identify which level of health promotion is needed assisting them in finding a starting point for helping correct or modify these behaviors (Morton, 2013).
The Term Paper on Health Promotion and Education
Outline: 1. Health Education a. Definition 2. Five Key Areas in Health Promotion and Education 3. Five Health Promotion Approach a. Medical Approach b. Behavior Change Approaches c. Educational approach d. In Client-Centered Approach e. Societal Change Approach 4. Healthy Lifestyle a. Definition b. How to promote a healthy lifestyle? 5. Advocacy for Health R.A. 9163 Motivation: 1. Are you healthy? ...
A study completed in 2008, showed that health promotion by nurses was mistaken for the concept of modified health education per the individual, and that in order for this to become successful, five approaches to health promotion needed to link together: medical, behavioral change, education, client-centered, and societal change (Morton, 2013).
Correlating these five approaches, the nurse can work with
the patient’s medical staff to create a better outcome for the patient. With the medical staff being consistent with patient teaching and increasing awareness of appropriate societal changes enhancing self efficacy, the patient will have a better chance of disease prevention, awareness, and treatment options depending on the situation and stage of disease process (Wu, Wu, Wang, Kao, & Yang, 2012).
Nursing roles and responsibilities are evolving today with the initial assessment and implementing an education plan. They work with the patient identify individual needs and goals and work closely with patients to assist them in meeting these goals. Nurses used to be expected to provide mostly education, but as the medical field progresses nurses’ duties are extended beyond taking care of sick patients. Duties of today’s nurse now encompass advocacy, organize community health events, health education, social and political reform and collaborate with agencies and their members to address complex problems in the community (Kulbok, Thatcher, Park, & Meszaros, 2012).
The Royal College of Nursing released a publication in 2008 highlighting several nurse-led public health initiatives to address unsafe behaviors targeted through health promotion. The list included methods primary care nurses can utilize to address issues such as patients with minimal to no exercise. These nurses implementing interventions for these patients to address the low use of exercise in their lives such as initiating the use of pedometers and structured exercise programs, which resulted in an adherence rate of over eighty percent. It was noted that the implementation of health promotion with these individuals had a high success rate when the nurses developed plans that the patients could follow. It was first noted in this publication that patients saw exercise as a more difficult option than medication, but after the methods put in place, patients were able to limit or avoid use of some medications (Morton, 2013).
The Essay on Primary Health Care & Its Impact on Nursing
This paper aims to define the term primary health and explain its origins and development; also touching on the impact of primary health on the nursing profession. It will commence with an introduction to primary health and primary health care. Covered in this paper will also be the influence that primary health care has had on nursing and any alterations associated with its implementation. ...
Primary, secondary and tertiary levels of health promotion all deal with improving quality of life and limiting either the disease process as whole or negative effects of already developed diseases. Primary health promotion,
or intervention is provided to prevent the onset of a condition. This includes activities to help avoid a health care problem such as: immunizations, health education, counseling, and is the most cost effective form as it helps avoid suffering and burdens associated with diseases. Secondary health promotion pinpoints and treats asymptomatic persons with possible diseases that are in the long latency phase such as hyperlipidemia or hypertension. It includes appropriate screenings of tests on those without symptoms of a disease but those with potential illnesses that unfold without treatment. Secondary health promotion maximizes patient wellbeing while minimizing suffering. Last, tertiary health promotion involves care of diseases that are already established and ideally restores patients to maximum function with low or no negative effects of the disease in an attempt to prevent complications. Early findings may minimize the impression of the disease (Fitzgerald, 2011).
With the nursing field so involved in patient care today, it is of importance for nurses to educate themselves on proper health promotion and value the significance of it. When nurses work collaboratively with others in the medical profession evaluating the patients’ environmental factors and surroundings, in addition to implementing appropriate interventions, the success rate of compliance along with the quality of life dramatically increases.
The Essay on Health Promotions In Nursing Practice
... Thorbjorg Ingadottir and Helga Jonsdottir (2010) showed secondary health promotion resulting in a reduction of a patient’s hospital stay, admission rate, psychological complications due ... (2010, October). Partnership-based nursing practice for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and their families: influences on health-related quality of life ...
References
Fitzgerald, M. (2011).
Primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention: Important in certification and practice. Retrieved from http://fhea.com/main/index.aspx?p=CertificationCols/level_prevention
Health promotion. (2013).
Retrieved from http://www.who.int/topics/health_promotion/en/
Kulbok, P. A., Thatcher, E., Park, E., & Meszaros, P. S. (2012).
Evolving Public Health Nursing Roles: Focus on Community Participatory Health Promotion and Prevention. Online Journal Of Issues In Nursing, 17(2), 1.
doi:10.3912/OJIN.Vol17No02Man01
Morton, K. (2013).
Implementing evidence-based health promotion strategies. Nursing Standard, 27(33), 35-42.
Wu, M., Wu, S., Wang, T., Kao, M., & Yang, W. (2012).
Effectiveness of a community-based health promotion program targeting people with hypertension and high cholesterol. Nursing & Health Sciences, 14(2), 173-181. doi:10.1111/j.1442-2018.2011.00675.x
