Faith community nursing also known as parish nursing remains one of the unique nursing specialties that places great emphasis on the much-needed intentional care of a client or patient’s spirit, prevention of illnesses, as wells as perpetuation of the integrated health model. In particular, a faith community nurse (FCN) typically considers an individual’s social, spiritual, emotional or psychological, and physical aspects with the sole purpose of creating the desired harmony with a higher power, including God, self, the surrounding or environment, and others. Notably, this form of nursing occurs within a faith community in which FCNs and other responsible stakeholders prioritize healing the individual’s mind, as well as body. Serving the underserved populations in community, faith community nursing revolves around utilizing appropriate nursing promotion strategies to ensure the creation and maintenance of a person’s sense of well-being, wholeness, and health. Concisely, the primary purpose of this paper involves identifying and examining the various roles played by a FCN in an underserved community setting to improve people’s well-being.
Community Setting
Although organized faith community nursing is organized and run by a faith-based organization, it offers nursing services to individuals in local hospitals, schools, markets, and other social settings. In essence, faith community nursing reaches out and successfully serves underserved populations. Typically, any given community comprises both vulnerable and advantaged individuals. The vulnerable group include patients suffering from chronic diseases and conditions, such as elevated blood pressure, older or senior citizens, the poor or low-income families, people with limited to no access to health care services, including the uninsured, the spiritually burdened, orphans, and immigrants. According to Monay et al. (2010), faith-community nursing programs represent over 46 million low-income, uninsured, as well as American minorities. Accordingly, available initiatives to help this group of people in the present-day society lack the capacity to address each of their changing spiritual, social, economic, physical health, and psychological needs.
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FCNs offers a broad range of health services. In her book, “Faith Community Nursing,” Hickman (2006) makes reference to Granger Westberg’s findings that the parish nurse plays seven major roles: development of support programs and groups, integration of health and faith, referral agent, coordination of volunteers, health personal health counselling, health advocate, and health education. In this context, the three health care services provided by faith community nursing constitute disease prevention, spiritual nourishment, and advocating equal access to quality care. Concerning the process of preventing diseases and any given life-threatening condition, a FCN places great emphasis on creating awareness among community members, educating on them on the important role played by leading a hygienic life. As a way of demonstrating what they educate, FCNs often engage the community, especially vulnerable members in washing hands, diet, and safe and healthy toilet use programs (Sheridan, 2017). Through health education, the underserved population prioritize sanitation, which, in turn, helps a great deal in preventing the outbreak of communicable diseases, such as cholera and bilharzia.
FCNs typically utilizes their spiritual experiences and assume a leading role in personal health counselling. In essence, they strive to provide holistic care by integrating spirituality into illness, as well as social contexts characterized by hardships (Hickman, 2006). For instance, a FCN tasked with the responsibility of handling a depressed patient will always make reference to their religious teachings to give hope to the emotionally disturbed individual. Drawing from real life examples, they challenge the patient to remain resilient, develop and maintain self-esteem, and continue trusting in the higher power for a breakthrough in their situation, including physical, psychological, and socioeconomic aspects of health (Sheridan, 2017’ Monay et al., 2010). In this way, FCNs emphasizes an individual’s wholeness. At the same time, a FCN remains a change-driven health advocate. Since they deal with the poor, vulnerable groups, such as refugees, and low-income persons, who are either uninsured or lack access to the desired care, they collaborate or liaise with responsible stakeholders ensure these people receive the much-needed care.
Health Promotion Nursing Intervention
In promoting health in the community setting, FCNs utilizes active listening, which serve as the most effective nursing intervention when dealing with vulnerable individuals. According to Hickman (2006), faith community health care providers (FCHCPs) should remain compassionate when handling underserved community members. Through compassionate listening, they find the best possible opportunity to develop the much-needed rapport and understand and address each of their needs accordingly. Active listening allows FCNs to spiritually, physically, and economically support deserving populations. Equally important, a FCN can collaborate with other responsible stakeholders, including clergy, community members, local authorities, orphanages, and congregants to implement this intervention. In particular, these stakeholders can organize community gatherings in which FCNs ask attendees to present their problems.
Professional Nursing Organization
One of the professional organizations that plays a fundamental role in representing and supporting FCNs in the United States (U.S.) is the Health Ministries Association (HMA). HMA not only serves as a national membership organization but also a convergence of religious, as well as health promotion (HMA, 2019). In essence, the organization plays a leading role in empowering, encouraging, and supporting individuals and leaders who utilize their knowledge, resources, and experiences in integrating faith into health care with the sole purpose of promoting wholeness among the vulnerable community members. HMA’s membership comprises FCNs, chaplains, health ministers, volunteers, and clergy. For this reason, HMA addresses a variety of professional issues, including formal education and training in community health nursing (HMA). Given the majority of members are volunteers, the organization sets regulations that ensure they align the various health services with the correct standards for nursing practice.
Summary
Conclusively, it is evident that faith community nursing focuses on provision of intentional care, covering a patient’s spirit, prevention of illnesses, as wells as perpetuation of the integrated health model. Organized and operated by faith-based organizations, faith community nursing occurs and addresses the various needs of underserved or vulnerable people. In this sense, FCNs play a wide range of roles, including health education, spiritual support, and advocating access to care. In promoting health, FCNs utilize active or compassionate listening with the sole purpose of understanding and addressing each of the problems affecting their clients. At the same time, faith community nursing remains supported by HMA, a professional membership organization that not only advocates their course but also regulates their practice to conform to the already established nursing standards.
References
HMA. (2019). Health Ministers Association . Retrieved Mar. 24, 2019 from: https://hmassoc.org/
Hickman, J. (2006). Faith community nursing . Philadelphia, Pennsylvani a, USA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
Monay, V., et al. (2010). Services delivered by faith-community nurses to individuals with elevated blood pressure. Public Health Nurse, 27 (6), 537-543.
Sheridan, M. (2017). Value and meaning of faith community nursing: Client and nurse perspectives. Journal of Christian Nursing, 34 (3), 182-189.
