Nurses play a significant role in health promotion and disease prevention, improving quality of life. They have a role in every department, from outpatient to surgery, record management, safety, dietetics, first aid, etc. Read this blog to understand nurses’ role in health promotion and disease prevention.
What is the nurses’ role in health promotion?
Health promotion is a set of actions to boost good health and well-being. It also involves providing activities promoting a person’s health, enabling patients to maintain their fitness level. Nurses first examine the patient’s health to assist them in obtaining a healthy lifestyle.
Health promotion helps strengthen community practice, builds personal skills, avails health services, enhances a supportive environment, and creates healthy public policy.
Nurses’ roles in health promotion are as follows;
- Assessing health needs
- Examine risk factors for a disease
- Asses and educate individuals about health risk
- Identify individuals learning preference
- Take part in community health education
- Educate individuals on how to maintain and prevent illness
- Provide recommendations on health promotion and maintenance
- Integrate therapies into health promotion activities
- Assess the patient’s understanding of health promotion activities
- Implement community-based client care
- Provide follow-up patients participating in health promotion activities.
Nurses’ role in disease prevention
Nurses improve health by encouraging individuals to acquire preventative services such as counselling, screening, and preventive medication. Through education, nurses encourage people to participate in healthy lifestyles to live longer. Disease prevention builds a healthy community through various techniques by identifying, educating, preventing, and treating diseases in populations.
There are three prevention techniques that nurses participate in; primary, secondary, and tertiary.
- Primary prevention
Primary preventions are measures to provide individuals with the knowledge to prevent illness. Nurses provide education and counselling to communities that promote positive health practices, such as wearing seat belts to prevent injuries, immunization, etc.
- Secondary prevention
Secondary prevention involves early disease detection, identifying individuals with high-risk factors, or screening to prevent the onset of an illness. Once the disease is specified, the nurse work with patients to manage and reduce risk, modify lifestyle and use the best methods to detect disease in its early stages when treatment is more effective. Regular exercises are essential since it can reduce the development of diseases.
- Tertiary prevention
Tertiary prevention includes the treatment of existing illnesses in patients. Nurses help patients make other behaviour and execute care plans to improve their condition. The tertiary stage also comprises methods of minimizing adverse effects and preventing complications.
What is the nurses’ role in preventing the spread of infection?
The following are the roles of an infection control nurse;
- Gathering and analyzing data to make decisions
- Isolating and treating infected patients to prevent the spread of the disease
- Educating medical professionals on infection prevention to enhance emergency preparedness
- Developing an action plan in case of an outbreak to minimize the impact
- Working with government agencies to ensure infection control practices are enforced and implemented.
- Preventing future outbreaks of pathogens by studying their origin
- Collaborate with scientists in developing vaccines and treatments to ensure the safety and health of the community.
What is the community health nurses’ role in health promotion and disease prevention?
Community health nursing guards the entire community’s health by promoting health and providing preventive measures to slow or stop the spread of illness. Nurses implement health standards by focusing on a specific group within the geographic location. Community health nurses perform both clinical and non-clinical duties.
The goal of community health nurses is to protect, promote, and preserve the health and well-being of people in the community. Below are the primary roles of community health nurses;
- Treating wounds and injuries
- Promote healthy lifestyle
- Prevent disease and health issues by administering vaccines
- Coordinating programs for blood donation, immunization, etc.
- Provide education about relevant topics such as STDs, disease prevention, smoking, and nutrition.
- Conduct research
- Create interventions to bridge the gap in care
- Evaluate community needs
- Identify barriers to healthcare
- Provide essential diagnostic services such as monitoring blood pressure and glucose
- Provide care to individuals in remote areas
- Tackle the health of the community over time
- Establish a health and wellness program
- Distribute health items such as pregnancy tests and condoms.
- Nurses control infectious diseases, teen pregnancy, obesity, etc.
What is the role of nursing in improving global health?
Global health issues need international cooperation in planning, response, prevention, and care that promote health equity issues among nations. Health issues such as infectious diseases, chronic diseases, etc., surpass national and international borders affecting undeserving and vulnerable populations. Nurses ensure that the community and individuals receive high-quality care globally.
The following are the roles that nurses play in improving global health;
- Treatment and control of infectious diseases
Global travel practices can lead to the spreading of infectious diseases since our health is interconnected. Nurses help control these diseases and care for patients’ daily needs.
- Primary care
Nurses provide primary care in rural and remote areas where physicians may not be available to deliver services unavailable to the community.
- Birth and delivery
Nurse-midwives care for mothers before, during, and after delivery in rural or remote areas worldwide where they cannot afford to pay doctors.
- Wellness
Nurses make a significant impact on the maintenance and prevention of chronic illness due to increase access to care and commitment.
- Human trafficking awareness
Nurses play an essential role in human trafficking awareness by training and educating the community and other healthcare professionals in the hospital. They also participate in human trafficking research and ensure that the information is understandable and available to the government, community, and healthcare systems.
What are the health promotion roles and responsibilities?
Health promotion enables people to improve their health and increase control. It involves the everyday lives of the whole population and aims to promote health and prevent illness. Health promotion aims to empower individuals to make healthy, positive choices and actions.
Nurses’ roles in health promotion for patients are as follows;
- Weight management
Nurses encourage weight management through regular exercise and a healthy diet to prevent osteoarthritis, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.
- Regular exercise
Nurses advocate for regular exercise (at least five days a week) to fight heart conditions, diabetes, arthritis, blood pressure, and stroke.
- Smoking and drug abuse education
Nurses educate individuals on the effects and risks of smoking and drug use, such as cancer, emphysema, etc.
- Controlling existing diseases
Health promotion nurses identify existing conditions in the early stages and control the effect of a specific illness.
- Education on alcohol use
Nurses educate individuals on the effects of alcohol use and screening for illnesses such as stroke, liver disease, or high blood pressure.
What are the three strategies for health promotion?
In case you are wondering how a nurse can improve health promotion, there are three basic strategies that nurses can work with to promote health in the community. These health promotion strategies are as follows;
- Health communication
Health communication helps people understand health needs exposing them to essential health decisions. Taking written and verbal health communication improves health literacy and encourages healthy activities. Health communication also bridges cultural considerations and understanding of health. Examples are flu vaccination posters, brochures for discussion, and health screening about heart disease.
- Health education
Health education upskills people about various health conditions, prevention, or early treatment. Learning sessions focus on the target population, for example, physical activities and nutrition lessons to prevent type 2 diabetes.
- Policy, systems, and environmental change(PSEs)
Policy change includes safety equipment and smoke-free entryways in the workplace. System change provides for the use of technology, innovation, or certifications to improve how health problems are solved. Environmental change solves population health challenges with the availability of nutritious food.
In addition, nurses can improve health promotion by facilitating easy access to care and identifying patients at risk.
What is the role of nurses in health promotion essays?
Nurses are essential in promoting health to patients in patient homes, healthcare facilities, and the community. They perform diagnosis and understand the patient’s ailment to determine if they are living a healthy lifestyle. Nurses also follow up on patients to determine if they are following instructions on improving their quality of life.
Nurses interact with patients by educating them on how to live healthier lives and prevent diseases. They make a healthy plan for patients to substitute unhealthy choices, for example, creating a healthy diet plan for obese patients to reduce their weight. Health promotion nurses plan their interventions on an evidence-based and work with patients to meet their needs.
Nurses’ intervention may include;
- Tackling obesity
- Physical activities
- Encourage self-care for patients with long-term conditions
- Supporting people with the risk of acquiring chronic illness
- Identifying areas for improvement
- Collaborating and maintaining good relationships with partners and colleagues
- Responding to complaints
- Take part in research by conducting data entry for clients
Bottom line
Nurses play an essential role in health promotion and disease prevention in every department, improving people’s quality of life. This blog explains nurses’ roles and responsibilities in enhancing individuals’ well-being.