Community nurses' attitudes to health promotion in one regional health authority

Abstract

A postal survey of all community nurses in North East Thames Regional Health Authority was carried out in April 1989 to explore their attitudes to health promotion and disease prevention. They supported the notion that GPs, community nurses and govern ment should make health promotion a higher pri ority, but identified practical constraints such as lack of time to carry it out effectively. The nurses were divided in their view about opportunistic health pro motion with 50 per cent of district nurses and 43 per cent of health visitors expressing the view that patients get annoyed if asked about behaviour such as smoking when it is not related to their presenting problem. This finding has implications for the debate concerning the use of opportunistic health pro motion methods versus specific clinics.

How evidence‐based is venous leg ulcer care? A survey in community settings

“…Perceived lack of time was not a statistically significant predictor in providing health education. Thus, the suggestion that nurses might not be able to provide lifestyle advice in their already overloaded schedule (Littlewood & Parker 1992, Runciman et al. 2006) was not confirmed.…”

Exploring district nursing competencies in health promotion: the use of the Delphi technique

“…Community nurses appear to hold the conviction that they have a pivotal role in health promotion. Littlewood and Parker's (1992) research study demonstrates that both DNs and health visitors (HVs) support the centrality of their role in health promotion and, more recently, Forbes et al. (2001) demonstrate that community nurses note health promotion to be an important area of their practice.…”

Accident and Emergency nurses’ attitudes towards health promotion

“…Nurses’ perceptions of health promotion have been explored (Cloutier‐Laffrey & Page 1989, Donoghue et al. 1990, Gorin 1992, Littlewood & Parker 1992, Bradford & Winn 1993, Latter 1994, Macleod Clark & Maben 1998, Liimatainen et al. 2001), but there are few studies examining their attitudes towards it.…”