Community Assessment
INTRODUCTION
In this week’s presentation, we analyze the importance of community assessment in nursing and how the nursing process is relevant to nursing practices in the community. The learning objectives for this topic include deciding whether nursing can be delivered at a community level. We will illustrate concepts that are basic to nursing practice, but apply them to a community seen as a client and partner for health.
We will review the nursing process as it relates to nursing practice in a community, and then we are going to analyze the importance of community assessment, as well as some methods of assessment, intervention and evaluation, and develop a nursing care plan to address a community problem.
Community as a Client
Nurses usually have individual patients as clients, but a community can also become a client. Community assessment is a core function of community health nursing. The nursing process can be applied to a community, and it’s also used to promote a community’s health. First, we’re going to review a definition of a community.
"The World Health Organization defines community as a social group determined by geographic boundaries and/or common values and interests." (WHO, 1990)
"Community members know and interact with one another; function within a particular social structure; and show and creates norms, values, and social institutions." (Hawe, 1994) (Nweze, 2012)
Communities and Partnerships
In this video, we discuss types of communities, the importance of partnerships, and the community as the health services client.
Assessment
Windshield Surveys
In this video, we discuss windshield surveys as a method of data generation.
When the problems are identified, you need to determine the nature of the problem and the factors that contribute to the problems. You really want to drill down in a problem analysis and find out the root cause of some of the problems.
Is there a high teen pregnancy rate? Is there a lack of after-school programs for the kids to get involved in when they get out of school? Are there no places to go for medical care, or to get family planning or birth control? Drill down to find the root cause.
Then look for relationships. Problems occur, but there’s never just one root cause of a problem. Usually, there’s a relationship between the factors, as one thing contributes to another.
Nursing Diagnosis
A community-level nursing diagnosis looks at the aggregate or whole, rather than at the individual. There are three parts to a nursing diagnosis:
- Risk of a specific problem
- Among a specific community
- Related to a particular characteristic
Conclusion
The nurse can play a key role in the implementation, but you’re probably not going to do this if the community is a very large group of people or geographic area.
Some nurses can work as change agents, and some are change partners. This is a key role, to determine what your community is like and see what works best for you as a nurse.
Lastly, you do want to evaluate the effects of the program that you’ve established. If you have measurable outcomes, you should be able to evaluate the program without any difficulty.
References
World Health Organization. (1990). Diet, nutrition and the prevention of chronic disease. Geneva, Switzerland: WHO.
Hawe, P. (1994). Capturing the meaning of community in community intervention evaluation: some contributions from community psychology. Health Promotion International, 9(3), 99–210.
Nweze, N. (2012). Community nutrition: Planning health promotion and disease prevention. (2nd ed.) Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
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