Describe The Nurse’s Role And Responsibility As Health Educator
Patient education is a significant responsibility for all nurses. A patient should be educated from the moment of admission to the date of discharge. There are always opportunities for nurses to teach patients and enforce teaching. According to Whitney, the first process of being health educator and teaching is patient assessment (2018). Patient assessment is necessary because each patient has different learning style, education level, values, and belief system. Nurses are also responsible to assess for any barriers in learning. Some of these barriers include culture, health disparities, environment, language, literary, and physiological barriers (Whitney, 2018). Patients need to be educated to make informed decisions, manage their health, prevent illness, and promote health. Nurses collaborate with an interdisciplinary team to develop a teaching plan tailored to a patient.
Nurse educator may collaborate with an interdisciplinary team to develop a tailored individual care plan. It is important for nurses to find out what is important to their patient and what motivated them to make the teaching more effective (Smith & Zsohar, 2013). This will be different for every patient because each patient has a different motivator and readiness to learn. Nurses should utilize the teach back method to demonstrate effective teaching. When developing educational programs in health promotion it is important for nurses to focus on a specific target group that share the same values and goals. It is important to determine the literacy level and any other barriers to learning. Providing various resources such as video, written, and audio material is essential for teaching and evaluating the patient’s knowledge in teaching.
Behavioral objectives should be utilized in a patient’s care plan when the patient is willing to learn and change. Before a nurse can utilize the behavioral objective, they need to determine the patient’s readiness to change and create on objective for the patient’s stage (Whitney, 2018). There are six stages of change. Nurses play a crucial role in patient education and are key players in improving patient health and wellness.
References
Smith, J. A., & Zsohar, H. (2013). Patient-education tips for new nurses. Nursing, 43(10), 1-3. doi:10.1097/01.nurse.0000434224.51627.8a
Whitney, S. (2018). Teaching and Learning Styles. In Health Promotion: Health & Wellness Across the Continuum. Grand Canyon University.
Respond to the above student’s posting using 200 to 250 words APA format supporting with one or two references in discussions.