NRS 429V Week 5 Assignment CLC Health Promotion and Community Resource Teaching Project Essay

NRS 429V Week 1 Discussion 1

Using the health belief model, how can nurses encourage patients to make immediate and permanent behavior changes; particularly as they relate to lifestyle choices?

Re: Topic 1 DQ 1

The nurse serves an important role in educating patients and families. It is important that the education caters to the learning styles of those being taught. Sonya Blevins (2020) describes four different learning style preferences: aural, read/write, kinesthetic, and visual. When care is taken to assess a learner’s style better educational outcomes/retention occurs. The nurse often reinforces education given by providers and assesses a patient’s understanding of the information provided. Nurse’s develop an educational care plan that addresses a patient’s individual needs using the nursing process of Assessment, Diagnosis, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation . As health educators, nurses apply evidence-based practice to ensure the best possible outcomes.

When it comes to educating patients and families, other considerations besides learning styles have to be made. A person’s level of education must be considered, it is suggested that education be geared towards 6^th grade competency in reading and writing. In addition, making sure that the information is in the learners preferred language is important as well. An assessment of a patient’s ability to hear, see, and speak also needs to be considered (Blevins, 2020).

Acknowledging a patient’s readiness to learn is also a special consideration. Many patients have physical, emotional, and or cognitive barriers that impede learning. When this occurs, involving the support people in the educational process is helpful. In addition, assessing the understanding and retention of the information is also a consideration.

Behavior objectives in care plans or health promotion are necessary when those actions are causing harm to the patient’s well-being. Whether the patient is compliant or not, the behavioral objectives provide a framework for expectations and goals for the patient, support persons and health care team. Patients often need the assistance of professionals such as nurses to help set goals that facilitate behavior change. It has been found that characteristic of goals influence the commitment to achieve the goal. For example, an “easy” goal has been found to encourage poor effort and performance (Bailey, 2017). A nurse can help the patient navigate through the complicated processes of goal setting.

Bailey, R. (2017). Goal setting and action planning for health behavior change. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. 13(6), 615-214.    https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827617729634

Blevins, S. (2020). Medication education: preparing the patient for discharge. MedSurg Nursing, 29(3), 213-214.

RESPOND

Re: Topic 1 DQ 1

According to the ebook Health Promotion: Health & Wellness Across the Continuum, it is the nurse’s role and responsibility to educate patients based on evidence-based research to have an effective positive learning outcome. Educating the patients should include the patient and the family involved in the care. Nurses should utilize the patient’s learning style because the patient will more likely understand the teaching based on the given information.

When developing a care plan or education program to promote health, the nurse should consider if there are any barriers that will hinder the learning curve when providing health education. To better improve patient teaching outcomes, nurses should include the patient and family and collaborate with the interdisciplinary team to create a plan of care so the patient and family will be willingly to follow through with the plan of care.

Creating behavioral objectives should be utilized when the nurse have noticed the patient is willingly ready for a change to promote health and wellness. The six stages of behavioral objectives are precontemplation, contemplation, planning, action, maintenance, and termination.

Resources

Grand Canyon University (Ed). (2018). Health promotion: Health & wellness across the continuum. Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs429vn/health-promotion-health-and-wellness-across-the-continuum/v1.1/