Primary Health Care Nurse: Role, Client Group, and Health-Related Topic

The role and function of the PHC Nurse

1. The designated role and function of the PHC Nurse

2. Identifying the nature and scope of the targeted client group and their identified need against your chosen health-related topic and the types of interventions/strategies that the PHC Nurse will use and employ.

3. The application of Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion principles aligned to the role and function of the PHC Nurse aligned to the adopted interventions/strategies.
Before you commence - take into account the word count limitation and the fact that you need to closely follow all the marking rubric criterion - which include all three of the main components. Each of the three components are in a logical order to follow - and each component is as important as the other and are related to and build upon each other - hence the recommendation that you apply equal quality and similar 'weighting' to each component.

A further 'general' advice is - especially for the first two main components - is to 'check' that you are not 'guessing' at PHC roles and functions and the types of intervention/strategies that they might adopt and implement. Look to the nursing literature and other online resources to confirm that such roles exists and that there are existing examples of PHC programmes that you can see 'in action'. You can use these to support your overall evidence-base in this assessment.

Let's take each main component in turn then - and offer advice based on 'typical' questions asked so
far.

Role of the PHC Nurse: Think outside of the ‘acute’ role box. Avoid identifying a role that is the same as you would perform on a hospital ward. PHC-based nurses, by the very nature of the environment, setting and client encounter, mostly work very differently to ward-based nurses - and have specific PHC-based role titles. Ensure that the role encompasses principles and elements of Primary Health Care - such as community development, public health, primary health care, social determinants of health etc. The role is far more that simply 'educating' - especially when this often means just 'offering health information/advice and/or teaching specific 'medical' tasks i.e. how to inject insulin.

 

Groups/communities, rarely (if ever), develop collectively from such limited activities. This is why you do not have the option to choose the 'developing personal skills (education)' Ottawa Charter key action strategy (see third assessment component) - because of the 'risk' that you might automatically focus on the limited 'default' activity of 'offering health information/advice' - as a main/only activity of the PHC role.

Target group - and identified health-related need/topic: Ensure that your 'target' group and topic is based on a known and established need for this community-based group. Again - look to the literature and online resources to confirm this. In Primary Health Care, due to limited resources, we don't just target any group in any community. We look to identify those who are most in need - usually 'vulnerable and disadvantaged' groups within specific populations/communities. There are many ways that the PHC practitioner can draw on information (sometimes called 'community diagnosis') that determines client groups in need of PHC support, interventions and programmes, in the community setting - such as census data, epidemiology data, existing public health policy priorities, community stakeholder engagement - such as interviews etc.

 

For the 'topic' - you need to choose a health-related issue that affects your chosen group within their community. It is best to avoid specific diseases and illnesses – as they are more likely to be 'acute'  episodes more likely leads to medical ‘treatment’ in the community. Think more in terms of ‘preventative’ acivities and addressing social determinants of health/lifestyle issues (upstream) rather than ‘reactive’ medical/treatment of 'disorders' (downstream). Many/most PHC priorities relate to social determinants and lifestyle - both preventative and/or long-term management of. If your topic is ‘condition-focused’ i.e. asthma, diabetes, cardio-vascular, mental health etc - think chronic models of care (not ‘medical' models) i.e. promoting self-management/support. If you choose a disease-related topic – again think ‘lifestyle’-related conditions (most are) – and then back to preventative/reducing further risk strategies.