What Is Health Promotion in Nursing Practice?
Written by:
University of Tulsa
• Sep 26, 2024
What Is Health Promotion in Nursing Practice?
Traditionally, many health systems have focused on treating and curing illnesses rather than prevention. The tide has shifted toward disease prevention in recent years, and nurses have been at the forefront. The nursing profession affords ample opportunity to promote wellness among individuals as well as communities.
What exactly is health promotion in nursing practice, and what steps can nursing professionals take to help patients take control over their own outcomes? For nurses equipped with the right education and training, countless opportunities are available to promote health and wellness, prevent disease, and make communities safer and stronger.
Health Promotion in Nursing Practice: An Overview
Health promotion in nursing focuses on enabling patients to exert greater control over their own health outcomes and ultimately to improve their physical and mental wellness.
Nurses can promote health in many ways. One option is to educate patients about making healthier lifestyle choices. Examples of this include the benefits of healthy dietary options, the benefits of regular exercise, ways to curb the spread of colds and other infectious diseases, and ways to avoid sexually transmitted infections.
Additionally, health promotion involves raising awareness about environmental factors that affect safety and wellness, such as unclean water, air pollution, or even prolonged sun exposure.
While health promotion is something that nurses can practice with individual patients, it also qualifies as a type of population health nursing . As such, nurses can make an impact at a community level, providing educational resources or events for different groups as opposed to individual patients.
Health promotion is one of several ways in which nurses can affect positive patient outcomes; other ways include providing greater access to health services and ensuring emotional support as needed.
Importance of Health Promotion in Nursing Practice
Health promotion is an important part of nursing for several reasons. Consider just a few of the benefits that health promotion brings to global health nursing .
Addressing Preventable Diseases
Many of the most common and fatal diseases are widely preventable, particularly through healthier choices. For example, diabetes, heart failure, and obesity can all be improved through healthy diets and regular exercise. Health promotion increases literacy about these topics and can thus curb these preventable diseases within target communities.
Controlling Health Care Costs
For those concerned with promoting an efficient health care economy, the adage “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is especially relevant. By mitigating the need for chronic disease management and emergency interventions, health promotion in nursing practice can minimize costs for individual patients and health systems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that in the United States, chronic diseases are the leading cause of illness and death and the top expense in the nation’s $4.5 trillion yearly health care spending. Nevertheless, proven interventions can improve outcomes and cost less.
Increasing the Use of Health Resources
Most communities provide public health resources that the average patient knows nothing about, from free vaccine clinics to birth control options. One benefit of health promotion is educating patients about some of the resources and services they can be accessing.
Tips to Improve Health Promotion in Nursing Practice
Nurses who wish to be more intentional about health promotion should keep a few guidelines and best practices in mind. A key priority is to ensure the right level of training and education, furnishing the skills needed for public health education as well as direct clinical care. Students may want to start with a clear understanding of RN vs. BSN designation, which can help clarify the ongoing training investments needed for success in the nursing field.
Additional tips include the following:
- Prioritize plain language. Break down clinical concepts into simple, easily digestible pieces that every patient will understand.
- Provide documents in the patient’s native language. Patients won’t always be able to absorb a lot of information in real time, so providing educational documents is crucial. Ensure that documents are available in the patient’s native tongue whenever possible.
- Be aware of communication barriers. Some patients may struggle to understand due to cognitive issues or disabilities. Nurses should be able to overcome these barriers with some basic planning and a sense of empathy.
- Focus on continuous education. Even during a routine physical assessment, nurses can provide plenty of health education. Writing down important concepts can help that education stick.
In Nursing, Health Promotion Is Key
Nurses have a lot of power to shape health outcomes and to provide patients with greater control over their lives. Health promotion is an important element of that. To become more adept and strategic at health promotion, nurses should seek a strong educational foundation. The University of Tulsa’s online RN to BSN path helps working nurses who want to advance their education and gain the kinds of soft skills that lend themselves to health promotion in nursing practice. The program is specifically designed to benefit working nurses who wish to hone their skills and advance their careers, all while enjoying flexible course schedules.
Find out how TU can help you access new opportunities for career enrichment today.
Recommended Readings
Director of Nursing Education Career Overview
MSN vs. RN: Why Earn an Advanced Degree?
Innovation in Nursing: 4 Current Trends
Sources:
American Nurses Association, How Nurses Can Affect Positive Patient Outcomes
Betterteam, Registered Nurse Job Description
