Community Health Care Nursing Essay

As per the question, please include my workplace which is a specialist hospital for oncology and transplant.

Community Health Care Nursing

Introduction

Community healthcare nursing is a field that integrates evidence-based research, new approaches, and scientific advances to improve health within communities. A community refers to a group of individuals in a certain location, that encompasses places where people live, go for learning, and work. The goal of community health nursing includes promoting, protecting, and preserving public health and integrates concepts such as promoting healthy lifestyles; preventing health problems and disease; providing direct care; educating the community regarding management of chronic disease and lifestyle modification; conducting research to improve health; and implementing health and wellness programs (Fooladi, 2015). Some of the health issues addressed by community health nurses include obesity and weight management; lifestyle modifications such as physical activities and healthy nutrition; smoking; substance abuse; sexually transmitted infections; and teen pregnancy. Workplaces are an example of locations where community health nurses can promote health. Community Health Care Nursing Essay. This is because as per Laroche et al (2020) majority of workplaces are characterized by sedentary lifestyles that may lead to adverse health outcomes. Various factors including social and individual factors, workplace hazards, available health programs, and access to healthcare services determine worker health. As a result, organizations normally develop programs to promote health among employees. Such programs tend to integrate activities that focus to protect workers’ safety and health hazards, as well as promote the health and well-being of the workers. This paper will discuss a “weight loss” campaign at my workplace, characterized by increased physical activity and exercises for the organizational employees. Additionally, the role of the community health nurse in creating awareness about healthy lifestyles in the workplace will be discussed.

Campaign to Promote Healthy Lifestyles in the Workplace

A campaign dubbed “Losing weight through healthy eating and physical activity” will be conducted throughout the organization. The campaign will involve promoting healthy diets within the organizational cafeterias, posting about healthy diets in the organizational social media accounts, and encouraging different types of exercises during work breaks. Community Health Care Nursing Essay

For a healthy diet, the workplace cafeterias will be encouraged to serve food having high amounts of vegetables and ensure that the vegetables are either served raw (thoroughly washed) or just adequately cooked.  The canteen will also be educated on the importance of providing fruits for every meal served and thus ensure that each meal is accompanied by a variety of fruits and vegetables. Additionally, since high fatty foods and high amounts of carbohydrates are associated with increased weight gain, the cafeterias will be encouraged to avoid serving foods containing trans fats, avoid serving processed foods, avoid serving high-calorie foods such as fries and high amounts of starches and limit the amount of sugar and salt while cooking. For the animal proteins, the cafeterias will be advised to choose fish, poultry, or lean meat. Additionally, the cafeterias will be advised to ensure that condiments, dressings, sauces, and pickles are always served on the side and in small servings. Finally, the cafeterias will be advised to serve small servings of food and use suitable-sized servings utensils.

For the employees, a workshop will be organized where all organizational workers will be educated about the importance of healthy meals. For example, during the workshop, employees will be advised to select brown rice and whole grains over cereals; choose healthy proteins and fats; avoid processed foods; select fish, poultry, or lean meat; avoid adding salt to already served food, eat high intake of vegetables and fruits as part of their daily diet; and avoid always choose small servings if weight loss is the goal. The rationale for promoting the provision of healthy foods in the workplace is that an environment with the availability of healthy food choices promotes healthy diets and, in the end, this becomes the norm within the workplace (Christensen et al., 2019). Workplace cafeterias should be both hygienic and pleasant and should display their food samples. Additionally, the cafeterias need to provide healthy combinations of various foods per servings.

Posters of the recommended health diets and food types will be posted in all departments while pamphlets with the recommended healthy diets will be distributed to all organizational employees. Additionally, all employees will be sent emails and reminders about healthy eating throughout the promotion period. Community Health Care Nursing Essay

For the physical activities, the organizational management will be encouraged to provide an on-site fitness activity that will provide employees with an opportunity to engage in activities such as Treadmill Interval Sprints, rollers, or squat. Additionally, a culture of physical activity will be encouraged by promoting brief exercise breaks during the working day and integrating physical activities and different types of exercises during meetings as part of active and healthy breaks. Moreover, a corporate challenge involving various physical activities such as cycling, running, jogging or swimming will be arranged where the winning teams will always be given prizes.

For the employees, a workshop will be held where they will be encouraged to cycle, jog, or walk on their way to work and discouraged to use their private cars when going to work. The staff will also be encouraged to use stairs instead of lifts. Moreover, the staff will be encouraged to participate in local and national events like sponsored walks and join an organizational membership scheme that promotes leisure services and exercises. Team building activities will mainly include physical activities and competitive exercises that promote physical activity. Finally, employees will be provided with information regarding the benefits of being physically active. Community Health Care Nursing Essay

There are various health benefits allied to regular exercise and physical activity. Evidence indicated that being physically active reduces the risk of developing chronic conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, adverse blood lipid profile, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, different types of cancers, and also improves mental health (Christensen et al., 2019). Sandercock& Andrade (2018) also add that health promotion programs within workplaces are effective in reducing body weight. Due to the high amount of time that employees spend at the workplace, workplaces are optimal settings to implement weight loss programs. This is also supported by Feldman et al (2019) who explain that workplace interventions aimed to lose weight are promising opportunities to decrease overweight at a population-based level.  This is because these interventions take advantage of both the social and physical environment of the workplace to influence and change the behavior of workers. Community Health Care Nursing Essay

The Role and Responsibility of Community Nurse in Creating Awareness on Healthy Lifestyles in the Workplace

The main role of a community health nurse is to identify a particular problem within a specific community setting and provide the appropriate healthcare services to the community setting (Bulotaitė et al., 2017). After identifying the health issue within a particular community setting, community nurses develop intervention plans aimed to address the specific health issue and also make efforts to educate the community members regarding the appropriate health choices that help with disease and illness prevention. Therefore, in a workplace setting, the community nurse has the role of identifying the pressing health need and issues within the workplace such as obesity, lack of physical activities, poor eating habits, and increased stress levels among the staff members. After identifying the specific health problem, the community nurse then has the role of coming up with the appropriate measures and interventions to address the health issue (McCollum et al., 2017). By implementing or supporting the implementation of the appropriate interventions, the community health nurses help to correct the poor health practices and maintain a healthy work environment and hence reduces the health risks. Community health nurses have the goal of educating patients using community-based intervention programs to correct multiple health problems. Community Health Care Nursing Essay

Therefore, in creating awareness regarding healthy lifestyles within the workplace, the community nurse has the role of investigating the most pressing health issue within the workplace. For example, the nurse should identify the health problem that is most prevalent and poses major health risks to the staff members. Workplace settings are characterized by various health problems that include health, psychosocial, biological, chemical, and physical risks. Additionally, long working hours, stress, sedentary jobs, as well as limited access to regular and healthy foods are some of the factors characterizing work setting (Alhassan &Poku, 2018). Therefore, the community nurse should identify the present health hazards within the workplace. After identifying the health issues, the nurse should then carry out research to come up with evidence-based interventions to support healthy lifestyles. This is because research is a common responsibility of a community health nurse. Community health nurses are responsible for conducting in-depth research regarding specific settings such as the workplace in order to identify the root of the common health problem in such a setting (Juniarti et al., 2019). The nurse can then use the research to help in pinpointing risk factors and reaching out to individuals at risk.

Secondly, the community health nurse has the role of creating awareness for the organizational management about the most pressing health issue within the workplace. The nurse should inform the management about the need to have the health issue addressed and suggest the preventative and healthy promotion strategies that should be used to address the issue (Juniarti et al., 2019). This is because the management plays an important role in consenting to the recommended strategies such as a health promotion campaign and also provides the appropriate resources to steer out the campaign. The nurse should emphasize to the organizational management regarding the significance of addressing the health risks before they escalate into a significant health issue. Adequate allocation of resources and finances to support and ensure successful campaigns that promote healthy lifestyles within the workplace. Support from organizational management is necessary to attain better outcomes from the campaign. Therefore, the community nurse has the role of garnering support from the organizational management to ensure the appropriate support is provided to the campaign. Community Health Care Nursing Essay

The major role of the community health nurses in creating awareness ofa healthy lifestyle within the workplace includes educating the employees about the appropriate healthy choices (Iriarte‐Roteta et al., 2020). The nurse also has the role to educate the employees about the necessary lifestyle modifications such as choosing low-calorie foods and a highintake of fruits and vegetables. The nurse should organize meetings, workshops, and social media campaigns aimed to promote healthy lifestyles. During the meetings and workshops, the community nurse should educate the workers about the appropriate diets and the recommended physical activities to ensure optimal health. At this level, the nurse will interact directly with the organizational workers and hand out informational pamphlets regarding the appropriate healthy lifestyles and spread out the word regarding the common practices the workers should avoid to prevent certain health problems. For example, the nurse should hand out fliers that indicate the risks associated with high-calorie diets, lack of physical activities, and other poor health habits such as smoking and excessive intake of alcohol. The community health nurse also has the responsibility of distributing health-related items to assist in preventing specific health problems in the workplace (Iriarte‐Roteta et al., 2020). For example, the community health nurse has the role of supporting the allocation of tools useful in performing exercises to the employees during work breaks or ensuring that physical activities are integrated into organization meetings as part of routine active and healthy breaks. Community Health Care Nursing Essay

The community health nurse is also responsible for recommending the appropriate dietary measures within the workplace cafeterias and canteens. The nurse should also educate the management and owners of the cafeterias about the appropriate diets and cooking styles likely to persevere the food nutrients. For example, the nurse should recommend to the management to be preparing healthy foods that include high portions of vegetables and fruits and low servings of high-calorie foods. The cafeterias will be encouraged to serve fresh vegetables and fruits as snacks; use multigrain cereals; avoid serving processed foods such as cakes, cookies, and biscuits in the cafes, and ensure that their foods are prepared using vegetable oils and use cooking methods such as grilling and steaming when preparing dishes.

Moreover, the community health nurse has the responsibility of modeling the appropriate healthy lifestyles in the workplace. According to McFarland & MacDonald (2019), community nurses promote health by leading and modeling positive health outcomes that include adherence, self-management, and quality of life. For example, the community nurse will adopt healthy lifestyle practices in the workplace such as eating healthy foods within the cafeterias and participating in exercises in the workplace gym in order to motivate and inspire other employees to take part in the healthy lifestyle modifications. Community Health Care Nursing Essay

The community health nurse also acts as an advocate. In this role, the nurse should advocate for the organization to implement policies that support healthy practices (Williams et al., 2018). The nurse should recommend to the organizational management to ensure that healthy practices such as ensuring that there are policies that recommend cafeterias in the workplace to serve only healthy foods and ensure that unhealthy foods such as french-fries are avoided in the cafes. The nurse should also recommend to the organizational management to support the implementation of organizational regulations that support all employees to participate in workplace competitions encouraging exercises and physical activities.Community Health Care Nursing Essay