The provision of high-quality healthcare services is every nation’s endeavor for its people to ensure a healthy and productive nation. Community health nursing provides these services to a group of people living within a common geographical territory and hence similar experiences and characteristics (Lundy & Janes, 2009). It is concerned with paramedical as well as medical interventions and approaches that care for the members of a community.
The major aims of community health nursing include the promotion of the population’s health needs, prevention of diseases/illnesses, and the management of various factors that affect the quality of health in the community. Nurses are a crucial component of community health nursing since they assist sick and healthy persons to regain and to improve their general health respectively. The essay discusses three types of community health care nursing and the health impact of each one.
Community health care nursing is divided into three definite categories which are determined by the clientele being served. It is characterized by the utilization of the various intervention processes which are aimed at enhancing the clients’ health, preventing illnesses and disability, and the management rehabilitation efforts (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2004). The primary goal of community health nursing is to improve the levels of people’s wellbeing through the assistance of concerned members to manage the health-illness discontinuities and the factors that are a threat to good health.
The first type of community health nursing is that which targets an individual in the community. Atomistic and holistic approaches are employed in looking at the person receiving the care (Lundy & Janes, 2009). Nurses at this level use biological, anthropological, psychological, and sociological perspectives to understand the individual being handled. This is due to the recognition that several factors combine to determine the health of an individual (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2004). These approaches are used to help the sick individual by understanding the possible causes and on the other hand advising a healthy individual to acquire optimum wellness.
The second type is that which is designed to address the health needs of families. Developmental and structural-functional models are used in the provision of healthcare needs. The developmental model has various stages at which a family undergoes. Stage one involves a family at its initial (beginning) stage, followed by the early child-bearing family, the family with nursery school children, then the school-going children, the family with teenagers, the sixth stage is the family with youth.
The seventh is the family at its middle age and finally the aging family. The second model is characterized by the need to understand the socio-economic, cultural, and environmental factors. The caregivers at this level are concerned with the assessment of individual members in a family as well as the prevention of illnesses in the family setting (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2004). Different levels are employed in assessing the health factors in the family-like threats to family health, health deficits, and helping families cope with challenges of adjustment and control of family resources.
The third type of community health nursing is that which deals with the health concerns of the community population. It is designed to address the health needs of vulnerable groups like infants and young children, school-going children, adolescents and the youth, women, men, and the aging population (Lundy & Janes, 2009). This type also deals with specialized fields like; community mental health nursing which takes care of special populations, occupational health nursing which addresses the health needs of workers in different fields, and school health nursing which uses the principles of nursing in the care of the school population.
The essay has described the various types of community health care nursing. These three major types are categorized according to the recipient of the care. They are designed to ensure that the health needs of each category are sufficiently addressed. It has emerged that these approaches have significant impacts on the recipients.
References
Lundy, S. K. & Janes, S. (2009). Community health nursing: caring for the populations (2nd ed). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Stanhope, M. & Lancaster, J. (2004). Community and public health nursing (6th ed). Elsevier health Sciences.