Nancy S. Hammack
Grand Canyon University: Family Centered Health Promotion NRS 429V Professor Barb McGraw
March 24, 2013
Understanding Health Promotion Interventions in Nursing Practice
The nursing profession is one of the largest health care professions, providing important opportunities for health promotion with potential to reform health at the legislative level. Health promotion is defined by Kreuter and Devore (1980) as, “the process of advocating health in order to enhance the probability that person (individual, family, and community), private (professional and business), and public (federal, state, and local government) support of positive health practices will become a societal norm” (p. 26). Health promotion in nursing practice focuses on changing behaviors and lifestyles empowering people to proactively be responsible for their health. However, unless the barriers are recognized, the goals of health promotion and disease prevention cannot be achieved. Nurses play an important role in promoting health and disease prevention to reduce risk, chronic disease, and enhancing the quality of life cost-effectively. One of the main roles of a nurse is educating in all health components for attaining maximum health. Upon this role and the nurse’s ability to use appropriate knowledge does health promotion and prevention heavily rely (Edelman & Mandel, 2010a).
Endless opportunities in a diverse society present challenges for nurses to use different levels of prevention intervention for effective health promotion, based on the situation and risk factors. The three levels of prevention, each having five steps are defined by Leavell & Clark (1965) in the following, “These steps include health promotion and specific protection (primary prevention); early diagnosis, prompt treatment, and disability limitation (secondary prevention); and restoration and rehabilitation
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