Nies and McEwen (2019) posit that health nurses have an essential function in improving and protecting people’s health in various community settings. Health nurses make a considerable contribution to the improvement and sustained development by addressing the health factors of a given population. According to Nies and McEwen (2019) by helping in the reduction of ailments and health complications, nurses contribute directly to the enhancement and improvement in quality of life of community members. Nurses also help in the prevention of social exclusion, disability, and improvement in rehabilitation services within the community setting. The identified community setting is a church congregation devoted to church activities in addition to their household errands. Within the church setting, nurses have the roles of organizing health fairs, visiting congregation participants, especially those with health issues. McCollum, Kovner, Ojemeni, Brewer & Cohen (2017) add that o ther significant roles include educating the congregation, offering caregiver training, and providing assistance and education to members with referrals. The most vulnerable population within the church setting is the aged; and those above the age of seventy. Nursing and medical care offered to the aged will reflect on the core values of clinical practice integrated with faith values, compassion, and continuity.
Community Setting
A faith community is made up of many community members, including young ones, adolescents, youths, middle-aged adults, and the aged ( Nies & McEwen , 2019). Young adults and the aged comprise the highest population; this is partly due to the high rate of retirement among working-class people. Out of the approximate 1200 faithful’s, over 35 percent are aged above seventy. These groupings are the most vulnerable, especially to old age health complications such as arthritis, heart complications, respiratory diseases, diabetes, falls, obesity, and substance abuse. Others include depression and oral health. The primary role of the nurse will entail being a point of referral for health services for the targeted group. Other critical services offered include training and educating the church members. Education will center on moral and ethical health issues ( McCollum et al., 2017) . Other services will include praying together with the faith community for acceptance, serenity, and healing with a patient ( Nies & McEwen, 2019). Education and training provide an essential platform to share with the targeted population on ways of living healthy and preventing opportunistic infections and diseases. At the same time, praying together with patients is critical as it helps them in accepting their disease, living positively, and seeking healthcare services if the need arises.
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Health Promotion Nursing Intervention
Nies and McEwen (2019) argue that health promotion is the process of empowering individuals and communities to improve and control their health. One of the most common ways of empowering people is by providing them with the relevant and appropriate information, training, and education. Nurses participate in this process by ensuring that individual’s access and get the necessary information, training, and education. For example, nurses can give vulnerable groups the right information to use while managing their health concerns. There are various interventions that nurses use to educate, inform, and empower individuals ( McCollum et al., 2017) . In the selected faith-based community setting, nurses can apply health promotions, screening programs, and food supplementation for the seniors. Due to their unique health needs, the seniors will most likely benefit from screening programs, health promotion programs, in addition to helping them understand the need to seek medication and constant checking.
Screening does entail testing for particular diseases aged people are prone to in addition to detecting any infection. Older people above the age of 65 are often prone to new infections. These diseases are difficult to treat in seniors once they are infected. For example, flu is complicated to manage in older people above the age of 65. Seniors need influenza vaccination, shingles, and vaccination against pneumococcal.
Supplementation is undertaken to help older people get appropriate nutrients, food, and vitamins. Undertaking supplementation is critical for the health of seniors, but it is often given as prescribed by law. Nurses who offer education and awareness in such a faith-based community need to empower the identified aged individuals with the appropriate information on the need to get supplements such as vitamin D, iodized salt, folic acid, and fluoridated water. By using their documentation, nurses can help the patients maintain and adhere to their recommended standard of living and medication through their treatment period.
Behavioral intervention is aimed at helping seniors adopt a healthy lifestyle. The nurses can achieve such by promoting healthy behaviors such as healthy eating, no alcohol or substance abuse, and productive living ( Balint & George, 2015) . Behavioral intervention among the aged is very critical as it helps them adopt a new and healthy lifestyle that helps them live as per recommended measures. For example, healthy eating helps in the prevention of obesity while abstinence from drugs and substances helps in the prevention of respiratory complications and the likely hood of cancer.
Professional Nursing Organization
Deaconess Nurse Ministry is a collaboration of primary caregivers who help older adults in low-income faith-based communities. The senior's health community care program is designed to help older adults lead a healthy lifestyle to acquire medication, create awareness on disease maintenance and care. DMN's core mission is to promote and improve the health of spirit, mind, and body among the community faithful's in St. Louis region (Deaconess Nurse Ministry. (2019). Its vision is "communities of holistic wellness." Its core values include faith-based community nursing, cost-effective health care delivery, and best practices that promote healthy living among the faithful in St. Louis region. The organization describes its focus as based on the intentional care of the body, mind, and spirit. It serves low-income seniors by educating them on health issues, developing support programs, coordinating volunteer and screening services, and helping patients with referrals to get the best health services (Deaconess Nurse Ministry, 2019). The organization is mainly addressing how to incorporate support groups in the house of worship, together with volunteer and training activities.
Summary
The role of nurses in the community is indispensable. Over the years, nurses have proved that their role within the community setting has proved worthwhile, especially in promoting healthy living, caregiving, diagnosis, and improving the lifestyle of many in society. These include creating health awareness, acting as agents for referral cases, and educating locals on their unique health needs. At the same time, the nurses’ help in addressing arising health issues such as disease outbreaks and disease management issues that are critical in the community. Different community settings require unique health needs. For example, the needs of a school setting are very different from that of a church-based environment. At the same time, different target groups require different health needs based on their differing health needs.
The chosen community setting, the faith community is a particular case setting due to the composition of the environment. The setting has individuals of all ages that comprise of children, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older members too. Some of the intervention measures used by nurses include establishing support groups, creating awareness through education and training, vaccination, and behavioral. All these efforts are aimed at enhancing and improving people’s health at the community level and advancing health issues globally.
References
Balint, K. A., & George, N. (2015). Faith community nursing scope of practice: Extending access to healthcare. Journal of Christian Nursing , 32 (1), 34-40.
Deaconess Nurse Ministry. (2019). Mission, Vision and Values. Retrieved November 23, 2019, from https://www.faithnurses.org/about/mission-vision-values/.
McCollum, M., Kovner, C. T., Ojemeni, M. T., Brewer, C., & Cohen, S. (2017). Nurses improve their communities’ health where they live, learn, work, and play. Policy, Politics, & Nursing Practice , 18 (1), 7-16. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1527154417698142?journalCode=ppna
Nies, M. A., & McEwen, M. (2019). Community/Public health nursing: Promoting the health of populations (7th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Saunders/Elsevier.
