As a fundamentally significant niche, such as community health nursing, it aims to formulate strategies to improve a specific population’s health and overall well-being. They also work toward preventing such ailments as they offer the much-needed education that communities lack.
There are many key qualitative characteristics of a nurse which, after being integrated into their profession, guarantee community nursing reaches the highest possible professional standard. These main principles aim to explore the perspective of the definition of community health nursing, the quality of nurses, and the profession’s impact.
Table of Contents
What is Community Health Nursing?
The community health nursing definition is used to describe a practice that is more directed towards health promotion, disease prevention and wellness, and this is done at the community level.
Considered on a broader scale, the community is the population in question rather than the individual. To define community health nursing further, it’s a fusion of nursing science and public health which seeks to improve the health status of the people in the community.
On the other hand, the concept of community health nursing seeks to change the social determinants of health such as access to healthcare services, education, housing and so on. It’s about working with communities to help them help themselves through education, advocacy, and preventive care.
Scope of Community Health Nursing
The scope of community health nursing addresses both immediate health concerns and long-term public health goals.
The domain of community health nursing is broad and includes various concepts. Community health nurses are employed in schools, clinics, public health departments, and rural or less privileged places. Their work includes:
- Performing various health examinations or screening.
- Formulating health education plans and applying them.
- Controlling the spread of a specific disease and providing vaccination.
- Supporting the advocacy of certain policies which help improve the health of that community.
- Carrying out care for particular patients and families.
This universal coverage helps in meeting the present and future public health needs through the services of community health.
Principles of Community Health Nursing
The principles of community health nursing serve as a unique guide for nursing professionals. These principles are as follows:
- Community Participation: This involves the mobilization of the population towards the planning, implementation, and evaluation of health programs.
- Holistic Approach: This means that the nurse should link social, emotional and environmental aspects to other factors in considering multi-dimensional aspects of the patient.
- Equity and Accessibility: This means that healthcare services are made available to all people irrespective of their social or economic standing.
- Prevention and Health Promotion: This refers to the preventive aspect of medicine with an emphasis on preventing diseases from occurring in the first place.
- Evidence-based Practice: This is the practice component that is guided by the most current available data and information about the target intervention.
Community health nursing is guided by principles that ensure its practicality, inclusiveness, and sustainability.
Role and Functions of a Community Health Nurse
The role of community health nurses tends to be versatile and continues to evolve. They act as a teacher, an advocate, a nurse and a community health leader. However functions of community health nurse include the following:
- Conducting health promotion campaigns and advocating for disease prevention strategies.
- Pursuing government interventions that increase health facility accessibility.
- Rendering personal care to individuals and families, mainly in primary healthcare settings.
- Working in conjunction with other health care workers to support the community.
- Conducting studies to explore patterns and causes of illness and meeting specific objectives.
Qualities of a Community Health Nurse
These qualities of community health nurse ensure they can effectively serve diverse populations and address complex health challenges.
The distinguishing attribute of a nurse in community health is their nursing qualities. Below are some of the 20 qualities of a good nurse relevant to community health nursing.
- Tenderness: An ability to feel what others feel
- Appreciative Awareness: Serving people who have different cultural orientations.
- Oral and Written Communication: Transmitting health-related messages to groups and individuals
- Flexibility: Functioning under complex and often fluid conditions.
- Medical management: Tackling multifarious health problems with new and universal approaches.
- Benevolence: Caring and loving the people in the community.
- Management: Giving direction to the people and the community.
- Tolerance: Assisting the people to achieve community development.
- Strength: Carefully balancing and overcoming difficulties and discouragement in the course of the public health work.
- Cognitive skills: Test ideas by applying logic to them, searching for evidence, and making conclusions.
- Teamwork: Relating harmoniously with other workers including nurses, doctors and other organizations.
- Political awareness: Addressing issues that relate to overlooked populations.
- Close scrutiny: Confirming affirmations made in health assessment and during interaction and intervention.
- Effective use of time: Accomplishing several tasks simultaneously.
- Instructor role: Participating in groups and individuals in health adoption and promotion and engaging them in primary prevention.
- Social skills: Controlling personal feelings and establishing relationships with other community members.
- Resource allocation: Making the most of resources to meet health goals.
- Professionalism: Following the requisite ethical standards and being a responsible worker.
- Continuous Educating: Keeping in touch with the latest trends and practices in public health.
- Commitment to the Cause: Showing a genuine wish to improve the health of the community.
Characteristics of the Nursing Profession
Nursing is a profession whose core defining elements are care, ethics, and service. The characteristics of the nursing profession that can be included as attributes of the nursing profession include:
- Robust sense of responsibility and accountability.
- Holistically integrated approaches toward patient care.
- Professional and career growth hinges on learning being a continuous process.
- Ability to work as part of a team of other healthcare professionals.
- Advocate for the patients and the respective communities.
Such characteristics are in my view beneficial for community health nurses as they work under challenging environments and limited resources.
Why Community Health Nursing Matters?
Community health nursing is not just a profession; it is considered a vocation. These nurses are instrumental in enhancing public health by focusing on the pertinent issues causing the poor health of the communities they serve.
Whether it be through nutrition education, outbreak management, or advocating for policy change, community health nurses impact their communities significantly every day.
Conclusion
Community health nurses serve as a vital link between the nursing profession and public health. They must have exceptional skills and compassion, starting from the definition of community health nursing to its various qualities of a nurse.
The world is transformed through understanding the scope of community health nursing, the role of community health nurses involved, and the characteristics of the nursing profession that can appreciate the impact these professionals have worldwide communities.
Are you motivated by some of the qualities of a community health nurse or the concept of community health nursing? Then you can think about pursuing this rewarding career. Let’s work collaboratively to achieve enhanced and stronger communities for all.
