According to Whitehead (2018), the role of health education in health promotion is:
– To empower the individual through education.
-To make informed choices and decisions regarding their own personal health for the better.
-Giving back control regarding their own health and well-being.
Health education presents information to the target population on health topics, including health benefits, threats they face and provides support to change according to the setting. It is one of the important strategies for implementing health promotion and disease prevention. Health education activities include lectures, courses, seminars etc. Health education is an integral part of the nursing process. The main goal of health education is to achieve long lasting positive behavior by providing enough knowledge to the population. The nurse uses this process to assess the effectiveness of the plan implemented and education program.
One of the major contemporary issues is addiction. Peaceful, loving homes can be divided by the strain caused by drug and alcohol addiction. Conflicts become normal in those families. This may develop severe trauma or the development of unhealthy coping mechanisms. Therefore, nurses play a significant role in developing health education plans. Instruct people about the devastation raised by addiction. For instance, explain in detail the consequence of addiction to drugs, alcohol…etc. Provide methods to reduces the addiction. Always support the patient and make them feel comfortable Nutbeam (2019).
Nutbeam, D. (2019). Health education and health promotion revisited. Health Education Journal, 78(6), 705-709.
Whitehead, D. (2018). Exploring health promotion and health education in nursing. Nurs Stand, 33(8), 38-44.
Health education is one of the most important parts in the nursing care plan. As the nurse we have orders and know what needs to be done to assist a patient in feeling and getting better, but the patient may not be aware of half the things that are being done especially when they have a new diagnosis. Falkner et al. (2022) state that health education is to help patients achieve control over the promotion of their own health. The nurse’s role is to provide proper resources and tools for the patient to have access and improve their own health.
In the nursing care plan, after doing an assessment and understanding the patients means of learning or changing their behaviors, the nurse then plans to assist with educational resources that are specific to the patient and their needs. In the implementation process the nurse will give the recommended resources and tools the patient can utilize and lastly the nurse will evaluate the learning the patient has gained. In my case, it can be difficult to evaluate once the patient is discharged since I’m in the ED but taking the time to go over the discharge paperwork and showing the patients what all is included in the paperwork and asking if they have any more questions helps me know that the patient is aware of what is provided to them and how to reach out to referrals if made by the providers.
A local issue in New Mexico that a family can experience is having minor children especially those under five-years-old, get their hands on THC infused foods that look like candy (Uyttebrouck, 2022). The educational role the nurse must address this issue would be getting together resources to alert parents who have children what to look for especially with marijuana now being legal in the state of New Mexico. Looking out for events for families to attend to get the proper knowledge of what possible signs and symptoms of a minor eating THC infused candies would like and know when to seek medical attention, exposure can lead to ventilation and/or seizures (Uyttebrouck, 2022).