Sample Nursing Essay on Community Health

COMMUNITY HEALTH

 

Community health nursing is a nursing approach that combines knowledge from the public health sciences with professional nursing theories to safeguard and improve the health of populations in the community. Community health nurses are faced with the challenge that is very different with that of nurses working in a health care delivery setting like a hospital.

            Family-client relationships in the community health care setting are very diverse considering that the nurses will also care for clients from diverse backgrounds. A nurse should be able to learn how to identify the unique needs of individual clients. The most important theme to consider for a community nurse is to understand clients’ lives. Strong, caring relationships are established by the nurses with their clients and the families. This way, the nurse becomes able to advise, counsel, and teach effectively after being accepted into the client’s family and by understanding what makes the client unique. The nurse has to acquire a picture of the client’s life and once he or she is able to do that, interventions designed to promote health and prevent disease can be introduced.

            In the usual health care delivery setting like a hospital, “knowing clients” is also emphasized. But the current health care environment within hospitals makes it difficult for a hospital nurse to really know their clients. Nurses in the hospitals care for many clients, and some clients are acutely ill, which reduces the time spent with a nurse and the client. There is no establishment of relationships like that in a community health setting.

In community health care, case management is an important competency. It is the ability to establish an appropriate plan of care based on assessment of clients and families and to coordinate needed resources and services for the client’s well-being across a continuum of care. Generally, a community health nurse will assume the responsibility for the case management of multiple clients. The greatest challenge lies in coordinating the activities of multiple providers and payers, in different settings, throughout a client’s continuum of care. In the hospital setting, a senior nurse advises her nursing staff on specific nursing care issues, coordinates the referral of clients to services provided by other disciplines, ensures that client education has been implemented, and monitors the client’s progress through discharge.

Aside from being the case manager, the community health nurse also serves a variety of roles: as a collaborator, an educator, a counselor, a client advocate, and as a change agent. In the hospital setting, the roles of the nurse is also varied but limited. Usually, in the hospital setting, there is a division of labor between the nurses. Some nurses may assume only a specific role.

            Nursing interventions in the community setting includes prevention or reduction of the frequency of health care problems and concerns; assisting individuals in reducing factors that negatively affect their health and gaining skills; and increasing the amount of interaction with service providers and acceptance of resources. Competence as a community health nurse requires the ability to use interventions that take into account the broad social and political context in which problems of the community occur and are resolved.

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