Public Health Nursing Theory and Practice Essay

21st Century Healthcare and Nursing Theory
Health Care of the Not So Distant Past
What comes to mind when you think of at the average United States hospital room? White walls, squeaky green but easy to clean linoleum flooring, frightening medical equipment, a tiny television, and one small chair for visitors are often some of the items that come to mind. Patients are placed in an environment with an institutional feel and little emphasis on aesthetics and are expected to heal, recover and rehabilitate as quickly as possible. The measure of success for healthcare organizations had a primary focus on throughput of patients and physician efficiency. (Engaging the 21st century patient, 2014) For nurses and healthcare workers, it is easy to see that the emphasis of the healthcare industry is shifting from that in resent history. There is a new push toward patient satisfaction, patient-family centered care and a more holistic model of care. (Kreitzer, 2014) This concentration of healthcare today is shifting from institutionalization of medicine to the personification of the patient.Public Health Nursing Theory and Practice Essay

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The 21st Century Healthcare System
Healthcare today is being developed into a holistic and patient-centered care driven environment. Some examples of this include a push toward all private rooms, increasing social support with open or extended visiting hours, therapeutic treatments including art therapy, music therapy, pet therapy, massage, noise reduction strategies, and many more. (Kreitzer, 2014) Effectiveness of these improvements and the healthcare system in general is often measured based on the patient.Public Health Nursing Theory and Practice Essay

The focus of this paper is to describe community and public health nursing as it pertains to the disease, Malaria. Major concepts discussed include genomics, funding, laws and legislation, community education, and the role of the public health nurse.

Final Position Paper 3

Discussion

Malaria is one of the “most severe public health problems worldwide” (Impact of Malaria, 2014). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), half of…show more content…Public Health Nursing Theory and Practice Essay
Researchers have identified mutations in the parasite genome that are associated with resistance (Miotto et al, 2015). The implications of these findings could possible identify “areas where artemisinin resistance could spread” (Morelle, 2015). Even though scientists are not fully aware of the mechanisms involved, “tracking down parasites that have these genetic changes could help them to identify the areas where resistance may spread” (Morelle, 2015). Final Position Paper 4 Malarial research and genomics has allowed a better understanding of the disease and drug responses. It has been used as a tool for mapping the markers of resistance within the parasite’s genes. These findings open the way to new therapeutic interventions against malaria, by providing insight into potential means of treating and controlling the disease. The implications of these discoveries on nursing practice could mean that nurses will have to learn about new emerging anti-malarial drugs and possible side effects. Malaria inflicts tremendous economic burdens to a large proportion of the human population. One funding issue involved in the fight against malaria is the perpetual cost of replacing insecticide treated nets (ITN). ITNs are insecticide-treated bed nets that “form a protective barrier around people sleeping under them” (Insecticide-Treated Bed

A nursing theory is a name that refers to a body of knowledge that is utilized in supporting nursing. It is also a framework for knowledge that is organized and it describes various nursing phenomena at a specific and concrete level. It consists of sets of concepts, relationships, definitions, prepositions, and definitions that are borrowed from models of nursing. In this assignment, we are going focus on the theory of Margaret Newman, its impacts and influence in the current field of nursing and its applications in the various clinical setting. We will check the background of the nurse theorist and her contribution to the nursing field.Public Health Nursing Theory and Practice Essay

Introduction
Margaret Newman is a nursing theorist who is recognized for the Theory of Health Expanding Human Consciousness. She was born in the year 1933 in Memphis Tennessee. She was raised in a Christian family because she was brought up in Baptist church where her mother was working as a secretary. Being brought in a Christian setting environment, it motivated her to join the missionary service later in her life. While in the mission, she realized that she was in no position to help people spiritually without taking care of them physically. She remembered that she had a nursing student roommate in her college, and she thought of taking that path for herself so that she could go back and help the people physical needs. She returned home after receiving news that her mother was ill. Her mother was suffering from chronic irreversible health condition which was amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. She decided to take care of her mother and become her primary care giver (Newman, 1990). It’s during that time that she realized that being diagnosed with a chronic disease does not make one unhealthy. She was so much convinced that her mother could still experience healthiness despite being diagnosed with the disease. She was able to formulate the condition of her mother as being confined rather than being defined by it.

She also discovered that during the entire hardship process of the disease of nursing her mother, she also started experiencing the same symptoms and alterations in movement, time, consciousness and space (Fawcett et al., 2012). She developed great connectedness towards her mother, and they knew each other a deeper and a better way than the earlier times. This is the experience that motivated her to go back to school and study nursing to help others like her mother. Expanding consciousness theory was introduced as a nursing theory in the late 1970s. This theory was developed through the study of its application cancer and cardiac disease between 1986 and 1997(Newman, 1990). The theory has evolved in the year 2010 to include the health of all people regardless of whether they have a disease or not (Newman, 1990; Fawcett., 2012).Public Health Nursing Theory and Practice Essay

Theory of Health as Expanding Consciousness
The theory of health expanding consciousness came from Rogers’ theory of unitary human beings. The assumption of Rogers regarding the interaction of individuals with their environment is used as a basis of consciousness being a manifestation of patterns evolving from the environment-person relationship. Margaret defines consciousness as an informational capacity of the system (human being) that is, the system ability to interact with the surrounding (Fawcett et al., 2012). Consciousness includes both the cognitive and the effective awareness that is usually related to consciousness and the interconnectedness of the whole living system. The information pattern which is the consciousness system is the larger part that is not a divided pattern of an expanding world.

She claims that each individual in every situation, regardless of how hopeless or disordered it may seem, takes part in the process of expanding the consciousness universally which is a process of one becoming oneself and discovering greater life meanings, and reaching new dimensions of connectedness with other individuals and the universe.

Contributions of Newman to the field of nursing
She was a trained nurse who assisted patients to recover and maintain their health. She was a lecturer in Minnesota University, and she taught nursing students from diverse backgrounds, and since she is role models, many nursing students have borrowed from her. She was the first to come up with the theory of health as expanding consciousness which was officially introduced as a nursing theory in the 1970s (Alligood, 2013). Her theory is of great use in the modern nursing profession because nurses and patients are using it today. She applied her nursing theory to help give better care to her patients (Butts et al., 2013). Public Health Nursing Theory and Practice Essay