DQ Using the health belief model, how can nurses encourage patients to make immediate and permanent behavior changes; particularly as they relate to lifestyle choices?
NRS 429V Week 1 Discussion 1
Family Health Assessment is crucial in identifying the family’s strength and weakness in terms of access to quality and affordable care. The assessment also provides crucial information to the healthcare practitioners on the threats to achieving comprehensive health and general wellness for the whole population. Furthermore, the family assessment prepares nurses especially the Family Nurse Practitioners with the relevant skills required in the assessment of the family health patterns and be able to offer family-based solutions (Peterson-Burch, 2018). The concept has also proved to be instrumental in advancement of genetic interventions in some of the complex conditions.
The nurse serves an important role in educating patients and families. It is important that the education caters to the learning styles of those being taught. Sonya Blevins (2020) describes four different learning style preferences: aural, read/write, kinesthetic, and visual. When care is taken to assess a learner’s style better educational outcomes/retention occurs. The nurse often reinforces education given by providers and assesses a patient’s understanding of the information provided. Nurse’s develop an educational care plan that addresses a patient’s individual needs using the nursing process of Assessment, Diagnosis, Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation . As health educators, nurses apply evidence-based practice to ensure the best possible outcomes.
DQ Using the health belief model, how can nurses encourage patients to make immediate and permanent behavior changes; particularly as they relate to lifestyle choices?
When it comes to educating patients and families, other considerations besides learning styles have to be made. A person’s level of education must be considered, it is suggested that education be geared towards 6th grade competency in reading and writing. In addition, making sure that the information is in the learners preferred language is important as well. An assessment of a patient’s ability to hear, see, and speak also needs to be considered (Blevins, 2020).
Acknowledging a patient’s readiness to learn is also a special consideration. Many patients have physical, emotional, and or cognitive barriers that impede learning. When this occurs, involving the support people in the educational process is helpful. In addition, assessing the understanding and retention of the information is also a consideration.
Behavior objectives in care plans or health promotion are necessary when those actions are causing harm to the patient’s well-being.
Whether the patient is compliant or not, the behavioral objectives provide a framework for expectations and goals for the patient, support persons and health care team. Patients often need the assistance of professionals such as nurses to help set goals that facilitate behavior change. It has been found that characteristic of goals influence the commitment to achieve the goal. For example, an “easy” goal has been found to encourage poor effort and performance (Bailey, 2017). A nurse can help the patient navigate through the complicated processes of goal setting.
Bailey, R. (2017). Goal setting and action planning for health behavior change. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. 13(6), 615-214. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827617729634
Blevins, S. (2020). Medication education: preparing the patient for discharge. MedSurg Nursing, 29(3), 213-214.
DQ Using the health belief model, how can nurses encourage patients to make immediate and permanent behavior changes; particularly as they relate to lifestyle choices?
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Re: Topic 1 DQ 1
According to the ebook Health Promotion: Health & Wellness Across the Continuum, it is the nurse’s role and responsibility to educate patients based on evidence-based research to have an effective positive learning outcome. Educating the patients should include the patient and the family involved in the care. Nurses should utilize the patient’s learning style because the patient will more likely understand the teaching based on the given information.
When developing a care plan or education program to promote health, the nurse should consider if there are any barriers that will hinder the learning curve when providing health education. To better improve patient teaching outcomes, nurses should include the patient and family and collaborate with the interdisciplinary team to create a plan of care so the patient and family will be willingly to follow through with the plan of care.
Creating behavioral objectives should be utilized when the nurse have noticed the patient is willingly ready for a change to promote health and wellness. The six stages of behavioral objectives are precontemplation, contemplation, planning, action, maintenance, and termination.
It is a professional and ethical responsibility for nurses to provide patients with evidence-based education and health counseling (Richard, Evans, & Williams, 2017). Some things to consider when teaching a patient are language barriers, socioeconomic status, access to medications or medical equipment, education level, and transportation availability.
DQ Using the health belief model, how can nurses encourage patients to make immediate and permanent behavior changes; particularly as they relate to lifestyle choices?
When considering a care plan for the patient, it is important to recognize the ability and willingness of the patient to learn. Involving family and/or caregivers are also used to assist in the success of the patients’ outcome. Asking the patient what their biggest concerns or learning needs are will help in developing a care plan. What the patient sees as an obstacle or concern may not be what the nurse intends it to be. Open ended questioning is a good way for the nurse to determine if the patient understands what is being taught and engaging in the education process.
Behavioral objectives should be continuously assessed in the health promotion of the patient. For example, a patient with dementia may be unable to remember when to take medications and will need assistance. Depending on the severity, they may need someone to give them the medication or possibly set up a pill dispenser for them to utilize. Involving the patient in the care plan process can help to improve health quality and reach goals in managing disease processes or illnesses. There are times when the patient is unwilling to learn or change unhealthy lifestyles. There are several health promotion models. The participatory health model incorporates shared decision making into patient-centered medicine in the idea that it results in improved health care. By incorporating respect and open communication, individual family members and health care providers can work together using this model to form an effective team (Levy et al., 2016). Regardless of what model used, scope of practice and the use of evidence-based practice should be considered when developing care plans and health promotion.
DQ Using the health belief model, how can nurses encourage patients to make immediate and permanent behavior changes; particularly as they relate to lifestyle choices?