Using International Videoconferencing to Extend the Global Reach of Community Health Nursing Education

Travel abroad provides college students with a unique learning experience. When plans to take undergraduate community health nursing students from the United States to Haiti were cancelled due to health and safety concerns, faculty piloted international videoconferencing with a nursing program in Haiti as an alternative. During this semester‐long course, students in both countries assessed a local community using the Community as Partner framework and compared findings during videoconferences with their international peers. Despite communication challenges such as language barriers and limited internet access in Haiti, evaluative data suggests that all students valued learning with their nursing student peers in another country. For future international videoconferencing endeavors, especially with under‐resourced communities, we provide recommendations in the following categories: 1) Building relationships with a partner school, 2) Technology, 3) Pedagogy, and 4) Facilitating interactions between students.     

Osteoporosis: Implications for Community Health Nursing

Osteoporosis is a major public health problem as evidenced by the fact that it affects more than four million American women. It is a critical factor in virtually all of the 700,000 disabling hip fractures that occur yearly and it costs the economy almost $1 billion annually (Hodgson, 1982). The purpose of this article is to identify the major causes of osteoporosis and to present nursing interventions which diminish the devastating effects of this disease.     

Clinical Competencies for Community Health Nursing

Cost-containment strategies initiated in the early 1980s caused a major shift in site of care delivery for persons needing nursing care. Where once the majority of clients were cared for in the acute-care setting until they were self-sufficient, now most are discharged to the home environment still requiring acute-care nursing interventions as well as community health nursing skills. This rapid shift in practice sites has placed severe strain on community health nursing agencies. Not only are more nurses required to fill the increased demand for services, but the demand comes at a time when we are experiencing a severe nursing shortage. This has forced many agencies to hire acute care nurses who have little or no community health nursing experience. These nurses come to community health nursing expecting to use the same set of skills and knowledge base used in their acute-care practice; however, the skill levels and concepts required for community health nursing are quite different from the acute care setting. Educational preparation has not kept pace with this shift in practice. Consequently, many nurses are not adequately prepared to enter community health nursing. Preparation must include theoretical and experiential components that focus on assessment skills (of the community and individual), decision making, case management, health systems management, teaching, and leadership. Collaborative efforts between community health organizations and educational institutions would seem to be one solution that would ensure adequately prepared nurses for community health nursing. The establishment and maintenance of strong staff-development programs within community health nursing agencies are also required.     

Academic Faculty Qualifications for Community/Public Health Nursing: An Association of Community Health Nursing Educators Position Paper

ABSTRACT The Association of Community Health Nursing Educators (ACHNE) has developed a number of documents designed to delineate the scope and function of community/public health nursing (C/PHN) educators, researchers, and practitioners. Consistent with the mission of ACHNE, this position paper entitled Academic Faculty Qualifications for Community/Public Health Nursing has been developed by the Faculty Qualifications Task Force. The shortage of qualified nursing faculty has been well documented. In particular, this shortage has increased the difficulty in having sufficient numbers of faculty who are educationally and experientially qualified to teach in the C/PHN specialty. ACHNE is addressing this concern by setting forth preferred qualifications for faculty to teach C/PHN at both the graduate and undergraduate level. While we recognize that the current faculty shortage may require schools to use faculty to teach in areas in which they do not have appropriate formal preparation, the paper outlines best practices for teaching C/PHN, a goal we urge all schools of nursing to work toward. Task Force members developed an earlier draft of the document in fall 2008, and input was solicited and received from ACHNE members and considered in the final document, which was approved by the ACHNE Executive Board in July 2009.     

Cultivating Settings for Community Health Nursing Research

Linkages between community health nurses and voluntary health associations provide rich research opportunities. Developing and nurturing collaborative research requires a significant investment of time and effort from people with diverse interests, backgrounds, and talents. Specifically, successful collaboration requires that each participant demonstrate commitment to the project by making a contribution of time and talent. Open, honest communication and compatibility among team members is essential if research questions and methodology are to be developed and if data are to be collected, analyzed and communicated. Proper credit is important, since people who contribute to a project expect appropriate recognition. Collaborative research between community health nurses and voluntary agencies is certainly not new. Both nurses and the associations benefit since all participants can attain individual and mutually agreed upon goals.     

Collaboration: Integrating Practice and Research in Public Health Nursing

The need to integrate clinical practice and research has been stressed for many years in both public health and nursing. This article describes such a collaborative project between two rural upper Midwest public health nursing agencies and public health nursing faculty from a small, liberal arts, baccalaureate nursing program. The high-risk prenatal research project provided an opportunity for nursing staff and faculty research consultants to work together on a clinical study. A model for collaborative research is illustrated, and advantages and disadvantages for practice, administration, and research are discussed.     

Toward Healthy Aging: A Theory for Community Health Nursing

In this research project we explored beliefs about healthy aging in an Appalachian community. A major goal was to develop theory for community health nursing interventions that promote and maintain health during the aging process. A convenience sample of 105 community informants responded to an open-ended interview schedule that elicited beliefs and values of health and aging. The data were analyzed for the purpose of producing grounded theory; a major category that emerged portrayed the aging process as a collection of attitudes about oneself. Health was described as feeling good and being able to enjoy life. The informants reported that health is maintained by good nutrition, exercise, and an environment that is safe and promotes individual growth and development. A beginning theory of independence through self-care and client involvement emerged from the data analysis. A second component of the theory suggested that to promote healthy aging, nursing interventions should be directed toward aggregate populations. Nursing interventions that are grounded in the understanding of cultural beliefs and practices are likely to be more beneficial to clients than those that ignore or displace such beliefs and practices. This theory has the potential of being extended to a variety of settings.     

Community Health Diagnosis in Nursing

A review of the historical evolution of the concept of community health diagnosis in nursing identifies sources of ambiguity that have impeded making the goals and values of community health nursing operational. Refinements of meaning in the conceptualization of the community health diagnosis that focus upon the community as the primary level of analysis are suggested. Implications of this reconceptualization of the practice of community health nursing are considered in guidelines for developing community health diagnoses and in an example of the diagnosis of a Mien refugee community's responses to health problems.     

Community Health Nursing Outcomes Inventory

The Community Health Nursing Outcomes Inventory (CHNOI) is a 48-item assessment instrument that measures client and nurse outcomes in community settings. The objective of this study was to test the psychometric properties and feasibility of the CHNOI. Results suggest that the CHNOI is an instrument that efficiently measures outcomes sensitive to nursing care in health services research. Managers and researchers may find this instrument useful to assess a community health program's effectiveness.     

Community Health Nursing Advocacy: A Concept Analysis

The purpose of this article is to present an in-depth analysis of the concept of community health nursing (CHN) advocacy. Walker and Avant’s (2010) 8-step concept analysis methodology was used. A broad inquiry into the literature between 1994 and 2014 resulted in the identification of the uses, defining attributes, empirical referents, antecedents, and consequences, as well as the articulation of an operational definition of CHN advocacy. Model and contrary cases were identified to demonstrate the concept’s application and to clarify its meaning. This analysis contributes to the advancement of knowledge of CHN advocacy and provides nurse clinicians, educators, and researchers with some conceptual clarity to help improve community health outcomes.     

Community Analysis in Community Health Nursing Practice: The GENESIS Model

A community-analysis strategy, GENESIS (general ethnographic and nursing evaluation studies in the state), is a comprehensive, holistic portrait of communities obtained through secondary analysis of existing data and qualitative methods. The GENESIS method is delineated and examples of studies are presented. To explicate the method and illustrate the findings, an aggregate-focused GENESIS study and two studies in which entire communities were the targets are compared and contrasted. Other defining concepts of nursing, such as caring and health, are redefined or explicated to make them congruent with the recognition that for community health nurses, the community is the client.     

Integrating Nursing Diagnosis for Population Groups Within Community Health Nursing Practice

Conflicting views exist about the utility of nursing diagnosis in community health nursing, particularly in relation to its use with population groups. Until recently, this application of nursing diagnosis received limited consideration by the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association. As a result, discussion is needed regarding the ways in which use of nursing diagnosis with population groups in community settings may be different from the use of nursing diagnosis with individuals. In this article several distinctive characteristics of the use of nursing diagnosis for health promotion with various population groups are addressed. Thoughtful consideration of these distinctive characteristics can provide a foundation for effective use of nursing diagnosis with population groups in community settings.     

A Study of Community Differences in Stress Among the Elderly: Implications for Community Health Nursing

It has long been known that stressful states are linked to physical and mental health. An important dimension of emotional stress is community environment. That is, communities can produce stress in individuals but can also provide the coping resources that help modify these stressors. We examined differences in stress responses among a random samples of 900 elderly living in nine metropolitan and nine non-metropolitan, randomly chosen communities in six northeastern states. Respondents were asked if, in the past year, they had experienced anything upsetting or stressful in their lives connected with family and friends, their health, and their finances. The findings support the existence of community differences in stress responses for these elderly respondents, and show evidence of a link between community structure and individual behaviors.     

Nuclear Freeze and Disarmament: A Mandate for Community Health Nursing

Nuclear war is presented as the “ultimate epidemic,” and requires the involvement of community health nurses in preventing it. The health consequences of nuclear war as well as present costs to human health of the current arms race are enormous. Nursing actions and primary prevention are discussed.     

The Value of Community Health Nursing: A Phenomenological Study of the Perceptions of Community Health Nurses

Abstract This study explores and describes the value of community health nursing from the perspective of community health nurses. The phenomenological method as defined by Colaizzi (1978) guided this exploration. Eleven community health nurses from the health department of a large urban center were interviewed for the study. The data revealed five major themes: 1) the value of activities in community health nursing: 2) the value of the purposes of community health nursing; 3) the value of prerequisites for community health nursing; 4) the value of the visibility of community health nursing; and 5) the value of community health nursing as the way to the future in health care. The findings of this study are particularly important in light of recent government interest in community health. However, if community health nurses are to capitalize upon this window of opportunity, they must clearly and forcefully articulate and make visible their value. Further research, particularly from a qualitative perspective, could help to advance this field of practice. Research that articulates the value of community health nursing in various settings and from the perspectives of various nurses, clients, and colleagues could also clarify and promote the collective and individual value of community health nursing.     

Reconceptualization of Community Health Nursing Clinicals for Undergraduate Students

Abstract The multilevel community intervention model is a way of maximizing community resources and services and providing a community focus for undergraduate community health nursing students. The rationale for a change from traditional community health nursing clinical experiences to more community focused ones and current nursing standards supporting this change are identified. The model and its utilization with undergraduate nursing students is discussed. Three groups of undergraduate community health nursing students will each implement one piece of the model and through group discussions learn about the total model.