The Role of Nurse from a Health Promotion Perspective Order Instructions: The Role of the Nurse from a Health Promotion Perspective in Meeting the Needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population
APA style
References 5
Key points community support, Smoking, health educations, alcohol, dialysis bus, diseases
The Role of the Nurse from a Health Promotion Perspective Sample Answer
The Role of the Nurse from a Health Promotion Perspective in Meeting the Needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Population
The role of nurses is diverse and includes a wide range of nursing activities both preventative and curative, which particularly include consultation, patient health education, treatment follow-up as well as illness prevention. This has played a significant role in improving healthcare services’ availability, increased cost-effectiveness, reduced symptoms of diseases that are chronic as well as enhanced healthcare services’ experiences among patients (Whitehead, 2011). In addition, nurses have been playing an imperative role towards health promotion, which has contributed to significant positive health outcomes such as quality of life, adherence, and knowledge of patients concerning their illnesses as well as improved self-management (Tones & Tilford, 2011; Wise, 2012). In this paper, the focus will be on the role of the nurse from the perspective of health promotion in meeting current as well as future needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in Australia. According to Angus (2013), the concept of health promotion from the perspective of nursing care emphasizes on health promotion practice that is community-based, and which encourages community participation on basis of health and social policies. This approach is very vital because it ensures that the current and future health needs of a community or a population of people are satisfactorily met (Marshall, 2012).
The current and future health needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population, who are the indigenous people in the country from a health promotion perspective, are an important health priority considering that this population has been highly disadvantaged in comparison to non-indigenous Australians in terms of healthcare services’ access. As a result, a nurse would play an essential role in meeting current and future healthcare needs of this population, especially from the perspective of health promotion. Gee et al. (2014) reiterate that the people of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population have continued to suffer the greatest burden of illness compared to the rest of the population due to lower levels of healthcare services’ access. This means that a nurse would have to play a crucial role in order to satisfactorily meet the needs of this population.
Considering that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population has been marginalized over the last few centuries, a nurse would play a significant role in improving poor health by meeting the current and future healthcare needs. For instance, a nurse would help in community support, which would be essential in promoting advancement in the improvement of health through cooperation with the community (Marshall, 2012). This means that, since there are several social determinants of health among the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander citizens such as money, peaceful coexistence in the community, education level, working as well as connectedness to family and friends, the nurse will need to provide community support with regards to empowerment and partnerships. In particular, the empowerment of the population through community support will require the nurse to provide necessary information to individuals and groups concerning various diseases and health conditions so that they able to make informed healthcare choices. This would, in turn, determine their destiny through the acquisition of appropriate resources for supporting their decisions. In addition, the nurse could also enable community support by promoting partnerships with other healthcare providers as well as community and social workers (Whitehead, 2011). Consequently, the groups under the supervision of the nurse should work synergistically to ensure that healthcare equity is achieved among the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population and appropriate healthcare outcomes with regards to policy, ethical and legal considerations are attained. Community support through the nurse can also be promoted by designing programs directed at health promotion as well as advocacy for the availability of important health services in remote and rural areas where the majority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are located (Tones & Tilford, 2011; Wise, 2012).
Furthermore, health education is another vital role that a nurse can play from the perspective of health promotion in order to meet current and future needs of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population. This mainly concerns promoting awareness and accessibility of health services aimed at prevention illnesses and health promotion. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2013) definition of health promotion is that it is considered as a process through which people are enabled to increase their control over as well as improvement of their health. The nurse can facilitate this process through the provision of appropriate information to the people in form of health education. Nurses are better placed to provide health education because of their education and experience in healthcare and nursing practice, which make them a harbor of healthcare information. As a result, the nurse can disseminate this information, particularly that concerning preventive and management measures that can be fundamental in meeting the current and future needs of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population (Gee et al., 2014).
Additionally, since a considerable number of respiratory diseases are attributed to tobacco smoking, the nurse can play an important role in promoting smoking cessation in order to abate this trend. Considering that, a considerable population of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders smoke it would be necessary for the nurse to devise programs that promote smoking cessation. It is also imperative to note that it is not likely for this indigenous population to take alcohol compared to the non-indigenous. However, this requires the nurse to encourage those who take alcohol to either stop or refrain from taking it in harmful levels (Angus, 2013).
Furthermore, the Health Department of Australian Government (2013) reported that kidney disease among this population is a serious health problem. As a result, the nurse would organize for dialysis bus for the people requiring dialysis at home considering that the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population has the highest prevalence of kidney disease compared to any other population in Australia. Moreover, the nurse will also play an important role in meeting the needs of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population from the perspective of health promotion by promoting treatment and management of chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancers, and heart diseases. Alternatively, the nurse should also champion for health promotion through the treatment of communicable diseases (Whitehead, 2011).
In conclusion, it is evident that the role of a nurse is inevitable in meeting the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders from a health promotion perspective. This is achievable through more programs that promote health advancement, better health conditions’ identification prior they become serious, more accessibility of primary healthcare services as well as enhancing greater cultural competence.
The Role of Nurse from a Health Promotion Perspective References
Angus, S. (2013). Global Health Promotion. Promoting the Health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island People: Issues for the Future, 4(2), 22–24.doi:10.1177/102538239700400313
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2013). Indigenous statistics: quality and availability. Retrieved 5 September 2016 from http://www.aihw.gov.au/indigenous-statistics-quality-availability/
Gee, G., Dudgeon, P., Schultz, C., Hart, A., & Kelly, K. (2014). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional wellbeing. In: Dudgeon P, Milroy H, Walker R, eds. working together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health and wellbeing principles and practice, (2nd ed.). Canberra: Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, pp. 55-68
Health Department of Australian Government. (2013). Healthy Active. Healthy Spaces and Places. Retrieved on 5 September 2016 from http://www.healthyactive.gov.au/internet/healthyactive/publishing.nsf/Content/healthy-spaces-index
Marshall, B.J. (2012). School-based health promotion across Australia. Journal of School Health, 70(3), 251–252. doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2000.tb07430.x.
Tones, K. & Tilford, S. (2011). Health promotion: effectiveness, efficiency, and equity, (3rd ed.). Cheltenham, UK: Nelson Thornes. ISBN 0-7487-4527-0.
Whitehead, D. (2011). Health promotion in nursing: A Derridean discourse analysis. Health Promotion International, 26(3), 17-127.
Wise, M. (2012). Health Promotion in Australia. Reviewing the past and looking to the future, 18, 497–508. doi:10.1080/09581590802503068.
