6.2 IMPLEMENTATION ACTIVITIES RELATED TO THIS CONCEPT
The community health nurse is an agent of change who’s care-giving at primary, secondary and tertiary levels is guided by four concepts of practice:
Conservation- maintaining health status and preserving function
Prevention-avoidance of harmful changes
Restoration-return to optimal levels of health once illness has occurred
Amelioration-of illness and its effects.
These concepts also guides a nurse employed in institutions, however there are many ways in which the role of a nurse in the community differs from that of the institutionally employed nurse.
PRIMARY PREVENTION
This activity focuses on education to promote a healthy lifestyle. Community health nurse spends more time on education during home visits, the nurse teaches nutrition, provides anticipatory guidance, emphasize the importance of staying drug and alcohol free and bodily changes during pregnancy. She conducts health talks with small group of women, men or general focusing on safety, illness prevention, use of safety devices and balancing work and home responsibilities especially in pregnancy. She also focuses on community needs in service and programmes that will keep the inhabitants healthy such as providing flu clinics or working with community high schools and college health services in teaching sexual responsibility and prevention of STDs. The nurse collaborates with community leaders and stakeholders in designing programs for the health of the people in the community. SECONDARY PREVENTION: This focuses on screening and early diagnosis of diseases or injury. The nurse spends significant amount of time assessing the need for planning, implementing, or evaluating programs that focus on the early detection of diseases. This is followed with teaching to prevent further damage from the disease in progress or to prevent spread of the disease if it is communicable. Examples of secondary prevention programs include establishing mammography clinics, teaching breast self-examination, administering tuberculin skin tests, conducting blood pressure screening. Both primary and secondary health care services can be provided the same time and this is usually done whenever women or men gather in groups. TERTIARY PREVENTION This focuses …show more content…
Many men and women work with chronic diseases, long-standing injuries with resulting disability, or conditions resulting from another disease. Examples include diabetes mellitus that is out of control because the client is overweight and sustained broken bones resulting from falls and having osteoporosis. Ideally, negative health conditions can be prevented. If not, the next best thing is for them to be diagnosed early, without damage to the woman’s health. But if negative health conditions have not been treated or brought under control, then the person is at tertiary level of prevention when someone intervenes. At this level of prevention the nurse focuses on quality of life and may even take a life-saving stance in the approach used. Working in the tertiary level involves all the nurse’s skills in addition to community resources and a client who can be or wants to be …show more content…
Health practitioners in the community conduct and use scientific investigations at all levels, from federal agencies and local groups conducting research.
Researchers in the community health investigate the characteristics and patterns of illness and health. Conditions such as food poisoning, trauma, alcoholism, lung cancer, child abuse, drug dependency, and suicide are studied for possible causes and means of prevention. Health and healthful behaviour are analysed, for example in nutrition project and in studies of normal human growth and behaviour for a better understanding of ways to promote healthful
The community health nurse is an agent of change who’s care-giving at primary, secondary and tertiary levels is guided by four concepts of practice:
Conservation- maintaining health status and preserving function
Prevention-avoidance of harmful changes
Restoration-return to optimal levels of health once illness has occurred
Amelioration-of illness and its effects.
These concepts also guides a nurse employed in institutions, however there are many ways in which the role of a nurse in the community differs from that of the institutionally employed nurse.
PRIMARY PREVENTION
This activity focuses on education to promote a healthy lifestyle. Community health nurse spends more time on education during home visits, the nurse teaches nutrition, provides anticipatory guidance, emphasize the importance of staying drug and alcohol free and bodily changes during pregnancy. She conducts health talks with small group of women, men or general focusing on safety, illness prevention, use of safety devices and balancing work and home responsibilities especially in pregnancy. She also focuses on community needs in service and programmes that will keep the inhabitants healthy such as providing flu clinics or working with community high schools and college health services in teaching sexual responsibility and prevention of STDs. The nurse collaborates with community leaders and stakeholders in designing programs for the health of the people in the community. SECONDARY PREVENTION: This focuses on screening and early diagnosis of diseases or injury. The nurse spends significant amount of time assessing the need for planning, implementing, or evaluating programs that focus on the early detection of diseases. This is followed with teaching to prevent further damage from the disease in progress or to prevent spread of the disease if it is communicable. Examples of secondary prevention programs include establishing mammography clinics, teaching breast self-examination, administering tuberculin skin tests, conducting blood pressure screening. Both primary and secondary health care services can be provided the same time and this is usually done whenever women or men gather in groups. TERTIARY PREVENTION This focuses …show more content…
Many men and women work with chronic diseases, long-standing injuries with resulting disability, or conditions resulting from another disease. Examples include diabetes mellitus that is out of control because the client is overweight and sustained broken bones resulting from falls and having osteoporosis. Ideally, negative health conditions can be prevented. If not, the next best thing is for them to be diagnosed early, without damage to the woman’s health. But if negative health conditions have not been treated or brought under control, then the person is at tertiary level of prevention when someone intervenes. At this level of prevention the nurse focuses on quality of life and may even take a life-saving stance in the approach used. Working in the tertiary level involves all the nurse’s skills in addition to community resources and a client who can be or wants to be …show more content…
Health practitioners in the community conduct and use scientific investigations at all levels, from federal agencies and local groups conducting research.
Researchers in the community health investigate the characteristics and patterns of illness and health. Conditions such as food poisoning, trauma, alcoholism, lung cancer, child abuse, drug dependency, and suicide are studied for possible causes and means of prevention. Health and healthful behaviour are analysed, for example in nutrition project and in studies of normal human growth and behaviour for a better understanding of ways to promote healthful