The role of the nurse in health promotion

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This paper describes and discusses issues concerned with the role of the nurse in health promotion work. It represents the first phase of a research project designed to explore this role, and presents the evolving philosophical framework for the study. The study is taking place currently in the United Kingdom and has been made possible by the (first) award of a Post Doctoral Nursing Research Fellowship to the project director. Against the backdrop of the World Health Organization's ‘Health for All by the year 2000’ (WHO HFA 2000) movement there have been repeated calls for nurses to be the leaders in health promotion. Policy makers and educators have responded to these calls by claiming a central role for nursing and putting health promotion high on policy and training agendas. Very little attention, however, has been devoted to exploring the legitimacy and development of this role in nursing. Generally, nurses seem enthusiastic about health promotion, and sure that they have a role to play. What is less certain is what this role is. The study seeks to clarify this by exploring policy, behaviour, and attitudes. Policy provides the framework for practice, and operates at a number of levels. In this early paper we review the literature to explore policy and practice from international to grassroots levels. We also make some initial observation derived from our pilot work.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: