The balance of the landscape in health care is more toward prevention than just treating illness. There should be an active health-promotion activity within the practice as the utmost nursing role among these paradigm shifts (Wills, 2022). The model Pender maintains is that “Health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over their health determinants to enhance the quality of their health outcomes” (Wilson, 2021). The proactive approach goes further than just disease management. It enables the person not to fall ill by exercising informed choices and healthy behaviour (Melariri et al., 2022).
Nurses are in a unique position to advise on health activity, ranging from education of the patient and simple preventative screening protocols being introduced within a clinical setting (Coelho, 2023) or being employed across vast sections of society through community outreach programs (Noori et al., 2021). They can broadly engage the public and communities in the activities of promoting health, whereby they would ensure an innovative approach such as the use of gamification (Krath et al., 2021) in the way they would be able to provide less burden on the healthcare system and a healthier population (Cross et al., 2021).
This essay explores and evaluates nurses’ multifaceted contributions to health promotion. So, in this paper, we will discuss the historical perspective and changing role dimensions of a nurse in serving humanity and critically review the health promotion strategies adopted by proficient nurses to fulfil individual futures and opportunities. The essay emphasises the need for continued support and investment in nursing-led health promotion initiatives drawn from nurses’ role in promoting health and preventing disease occurrence.
From the nursing perspective, health promotion is not meant to avoid illnesses; it is intended to empower individuals within the holistic guideline that enables them, clients, individuals, and the community to take responsibility for their health and well-being (Wills, 2022). It is proactive in line with Pender’s Health Promotion Model, where the nurse stands as a facilitator for individuals to make reasonable choices on how to positively take care of their health (Wilson, 2021).
The nurse’s role in health promotion truly goes through changes over time. History would delve into nurses caring for the sick and dying in Hoosick. However, in the 20th century, preventive healthcare was born through community-based programs (Cross et al., 2021). Influential and renowned to many, Florence Nightingale was the one who brought out the contribution of environmental factors to health with her advocacy for better sanitation and hygiene practices (Cross et al., 2021). This orientation in the focus of the prevalence of diseases laid the foundation for the modern nurse’s role in the focus of health promotion.
Nowadays, nurses in all these varied settings are actively promoting health. They teach and advise patients on preventing diseases, healthy choices in style, and self-management of cases they suffer from (Melariri et al., 2022). They will perform routine tests to detect probable early health issues and organise vaccinations (Wills, 2022). Community health clinic nurses will be part of an outreach program; they could organise workshops, for instance, where they will explain to people about healthy food, how to get rid of stress, or how to stop smoking. They have community leaders who come in to help solve social determinants of health, like access to quality food and living conditions (Coelho, 2023). Public health nurses focus their work on disease surveillance, vaccination campaigns, and all activities of informing and encouraging healthy behaviour in some groups of the population, especially mothers and children.
The growing scope of the nurse’s role includes more than the traditional interventions. Nurses are increasingly taking up such innovations by which they can engage people and communities in health promotion. For example, Noori et al. (2021) show that nurses’ program in the workplace effectively empowers women workers to promote health-seeking behaviour. Additionally, through a gamification strategy, nurses look into using game mechanics to activate users (Krath et al., 2021). That is, but a few of the innovative techniques being implemented show that nursing in health and healthcare is not just changing but increasing.
In modern times, health care is increasingly moving toward prevention, focusing on health promotion rather than just the disease. The current paradigmatic shift to health promotion places demands on critical roles accentuated by the nursing profession. This essay will explore nurses’ contributions to promoting health, the theoretical framework underpinning the activity, and examples from real-world interventions where health has successfully been promoted.
Nursing exceeds the provision of strategies that should be applied to prevent illness in health promotion. The approach involves empowering people and communities to take responsibility for their health and well-being (Wills, 2022). This proactive stand blends well with Pender’s Health Promotion Model (HPM), in which nurses assume the role of facilitators who strengthen the individual in decision-making while at the same time adopting positive health behaviours for the better part of their lifespan.
The role of nurses in promoting health has dramatically changed with time. Initially, nursing was based on providing patient care in hospitals alone. However, during the 20th century, the same continued with more emphasis on providing preventive health and community services (Cross et al., 2021). Today, the nurse’s role in health promotion is evident in most settings. For example, in clinical settings, they educate patients on preventing diseases through healthy living and the corresponding self-management strategies (Melariri et al., 2022). Besides regular screenings for the early detection of health problems, they back up immunisation (Wills, 2022). Nurses also arrange workshops on matters as diverse as healthy eating, how to manage stress, or how to stop smoking at community health clinics to give a broader outreach to such programs. They work with local leadership to address social determinants of health, such as access to healthy food and safe living conditions (Coelho, 2023). Within the scope of public health, the role of nurses is therefore very indispensable in a country’s health system, given that they monitor diseases, conduct mass immunisation drives, and are often involved in mass media health behaviour communication for the population.
During health-promoting activities, nurses use a lot of diversified strategies. More often than not, this is underlined with effective health promotion models that offer frameworks to understand health behaviours and support changes in health behaviour decisions. One such model includes Pender’s HPM, which centres on the assumption that personal factors influence health-promoting behaviour. In the model’s framework, the HPM views the way nurses may apply the HPM model in their assessment by establishing what the patient perceives in his competence, perception of barriers, and perception of benefits. This allows for tailored interventions that address individual needs and motivations.
Another framework, Tannahill’s Model, zeroed in on the six major areas that encompassed the influencing factors of health: systems of care, environment, education, policy, community action, and lifestyle choices of an individual (Cross et al., 2021). Through Tannahill’s model, nurses can advocate for healthy public policies and work with organisations in the community to institute health education programs. Some highlights that Beattie’s Model of Health Promotion focuses on include motivation, opportunity, skills, and social support (Cross et al., 2021). The model helps nurses employ motivational interviews with patients, apply the modification model of identifying and dealing with barriers towards change, and develop supportive social networks with their patients.
These are put into practice as interventions in the context of nurses. For example, in a cardiology unit, a nurse wants to assess the patient’s self-efficacy in carrying out dietary changes after having a heart attack. From these, an education program for healthy recipes with cooking demonstrations would be created to reduce perceived barriers of time and resources.
Public health nurses can apply the same model. At the same time, they work in partnership with local governance for the formulation of policies about healthy food in schools and colleges or laws that should be implemented in all public areas regarding smoke-free zones. A school nurse may apply Beattie’s model by guiding the teachers in including hands-on workshops in the curriculum regarding healthy eating and body exercise. They can also develop social support through health champions by peers or by working with parents to create the home environment most conducive to wholesome living.
The impact of a nurse-led health promotion program entails even individual cases. According to a study by Melariri et al. (2022), there is an increased effectiveness of the nurse-driven education program to the general line of health outcomes if the case is a chronic condition, like diabetes. The role of the nurse, through the use of motivational interviewing, in attaining higher quit rates would be well supported. Equally, such nurses bring people together through community outreach programs and health fairs, giving the population an entry point to access various preventive care services and acquire health education in their underserved communities (Coelho, 2023). Noori et al. (2021) concluded that the rise in empowerment is related to changes in the way of behaving healthily. Nurses are also on the lookout for new ways, such as gamification, to boost even more engagement in activities for health promotion (Krath et al., 2021).
Successfully implementing health promotion programs is central to effective communication. Nurses are intermediaries between complicated medical information and an individual patient or the community. A nurse should be a good communicator who would empower others to take complete control of their health through trust, understanding, and collaboration.
Cultural competence is part and parcel of communication in health promotion. It is respecting and recognising different cultures’ varied beliefs, values, and health practices (Wills, 2022). Nurses could show cultural competency by speaking in simple, clear language that avoids medical terminology. Still, where necessary, they should be able to use an interpreter. Other fundamental tenets of communication that portray cultural competency include active listening and respect for the patient’s decision.
The other crucial element is empathy: The nurses, by recognising the emotions and fears of the patient, as well as apprehensions (Cross et al., 2021), may provide a sure space within which to speak of problems and share concerns that the patient has. This further develops trust and can work collaboratively to promote health. For example, a nurse talking to a diabetic patient about a diet plan should know the patient’s cultural food preferences and budget.
In addition to effective communication, health promotion activities should be planned to include patients and communities in their plans, actions, and goals. The strategies may target different groups of people or the health issue for which the plan is made.
Motivational interviewing (MI) is an influential way nurses help patients change their behaviours. An approach is patient-oriented and collaborative in examining the patient’s ambivalence concerning healthy behaviours and the motivation for change (Melariri et al., 2022). Nurses will use open-ended questions, reflectiveness in listening, and affirmation to enable the patient to identify the goals for himself and develop them. Recent research by Noori et al. (2021) has found that MI is particularly fruitful within nurse-led empowerment programs. Thus, MI techniques allow nurses to move the person aside from self-ambivalence and bring more confidence towards acquiring healthy behaviours.
However, time is a bottleneck among nurses’ efforts in health promotion. Working within high nurse-to-patient ratios in the clinical area often minimises the period within which one wishes to offer adequate patient education and behaviour change counselling (Melariri et al., 2022). Resource limitations may also apply to support material for educational services, support groups, or community outreach programs (Wills, 2022).
More importantly, the described social determinants of health are related and interconnected in a way that poverty, for instance, may reduce chances of access to healthy foods and, at the same time, reduce chances of securing housing and educational opportunities. Any of these may significantly compromise people’s ability to live healthy lives despite their strongest motivations (Cross et al., 2021).
It can be helped with a multi-pronged approach to partnership among nurses, other health professionals, and community organisations. That way, nurses will work together to pool resources, bring areas of expertise, and craft full-ranging health promotion programs that underscore individual behaviour and the context of their life about social surroundings (Coelho, 2023).
Nurse leaders may, in turn, advocate for more staffing or the provision of alternatives in the delivery of service for health promotion interventions, which may involve group education sessions or telehealth consultations. The other is that they are critical social determinants of health educators to policymakers on the association between social determinants of health and individual welfare. This will convince these policymakers to put policies promoting health in place.
On the contrary, the health scene is under a whirl, providing fresh opportunities for nurses to devise and implement new health promotion methodologies daily. The promise that comes with digital health interventions is enormous. Telehealth consultations improve access to preventive health care and health education for geographically challenged individuals. Mobile health applications may give patients tools tailor-made to aid in self-monitoring of health indicators, tracking progress towards set goals, and g with health providers (needs more sources for citation).
The other growing research field is the application of gamification, which refers to the application of game mechanics in non-game contexts. According to Krath et al. (2021), the application of gamification evokes a high commitment level and motivation concerning health activities that it decorates through its inclinations to game elements like points, badges, and leaderboards.
Although such challenges are in place, the nurses are resourceful and flexible. Therefore, if nurses from both These will keep playing a central role in enhancing the people and communities empowered toward defining their priorities and building a better, healthier future for them.
It is, therefore, the age’s key to development, setting habits, and pointing efforts against the emergence of childhood obesity. The campaign aims to inform the 12-18-year-old youth on food choices. Perspective lies in the understanding of this age. For that, the focus group will be selected with the help of adolescents, schools, and community organisations to determine the needs. Their needs will be chosen from available resources in their schools and community organisations. An attractive slogan with funny or exciting messages, including energetic characters, will be utilised.
It is about meeting them at their point. Social media campaigns include interactive workshops for schools and partnerships with restaurants that offer healthy eating options. For this, it will be introduced through gamification, quizzes and a mobile app loaded with recipes, meal-planning tools, and sharing on social features. Working within school nursing, nutritionists, and physical education teachers ensure the message is delivered consistently, building the education for healthy eating into the curriculum. Effectiveness is assessed based on website hits, social media activity, and app use. Survey data are collected to detect changes in knowledge, attitudes, and the reported eating of students.
In a multifaceted dimension, this essay has discussed the role of nurses in health promotion. From cultural competence and motivational interviewing to the development of engaging campaigns and collaboration with communities, nursing prepares people and communities with what is needed for a health priority. The landscape of health is continuously changing, and new changes in the practice of health promotion occur as changes emanate from adopting digital health interventions and using new research findings to ensure sustained impact. Thus, investment in the nursing-led health promotion initiative is an investment in a healthier future. Adequate resource allocation and collaboration of healthcare and community sectors enable nurses to play an impactful part in improved individual and community lives. Let us continue to support nurses in their vital role as champions for health promotion.
Wills, J. (2022). Foundations for Health Promotion-E-Book: Foundations for Health Promotion-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.
Coelho, M. S. (2023). Supervisão Clínica do Enfermeiro na Comunidade para Promover a Qualidade do Cuidado prestado pelo Cuidador: A Scoping Review (Doctoral dissertation).
Wilson, J. C. (2021). Nola J. Pender: Health Promotion Model. Nursing Theorists and Their Work E-Book: Nursing Theorists and Their Work E-Book, p. 320.
Melariri, H., Osoba, T. A., Williams, M. M., & Melariri, P. (2022). Assessing nurses’ participation in Health Promotion: A knowledge, perception, and practice perspective. Journal of Preventive Medicine and Hygiene, 63(1), E27.
Cross, R., Rowlands, S., & Foster, S. (2021). The foundations of health promotion. Health promotion: global principles and practice, pp. 1–40.
Noori, F., Behboodimoghadam, Z., Haghani, S., & Pashaeypoor, S. (2021). The Effect of an Empowerment Program on the Health-promoting Behaviors of Iranian Women Workers: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, 54(4), 275.
Krath, J., Schürmann, L., & Von Korflesch, H. F. (2021). Revealing the theoretical basis of gamification: A systematic review and analysis of theory in research on gamification, serious games and game-based learning. Computers in Human Behavior, 125, 106963.