UNIT 1

FUNCTION OF COMMUNITY HEALTH

AMINATH SUNEEZA, BN,DM,DN

OBJECTIVES

 Explain principals of community health

 State aims of community health nursing
 Identify the Components of Community and Primary Health Care
 Describe function of community health nurse
CONCEPTS OF COMMUNITY HEALTH NURSING
 Community health nursing identifies the need of holistic care approach.
 Community health nursing supports that community based efforts and
involvement is essential for the risk reduction.
 It realizes that health promotion and primary prevention are major activities in
community health nursing practice.
 It supports the entire community as well as individual, families and aggregates is
a focus for community health nursing practice.
 It believes in overall development and well-being of individuals, families,
communities and nation.
AIMS OF CHN

 To improve quality of life

 To reduce risk factors
 To improve standards of living
 To strengthen selfcare activities of individuals
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
 To assess the need and priorities of vulnerable group like pregnant mother, children
and old age persons.
 To provide health care services at every level of community.
 To make community diagnosis.
 To evaluate the health programmes and make further plans.
 To prevent disabilities and providing rehabilitation services
 To provide referral services at various health care levels.
 To increase life expectancy.
 To enhance the standard of nursing profession through:
 Conducting nursing research.
 Provide quality assurance in community health nursing.
 Performing the role of nurse epidemiologist
SCOPES
 Rural areas and slums of cities.
 Special clinics.
 Mobile camps.
 Health centres.
 Schools
 Industrial organizations.
 Outdoor patient departments of big hospitals.
 Fairs and other places of social functions/ gathering.
 Rural and poor urban families etc.
COMPONENTS OF CHN

 Promotion of health
 prevention of health problems
 treatment of disorders
 rehabilitation
 evaluation,
 research
PRINCIPALS OF CHN

 Health services should be based on the needs of individuals and the community.
 Health services should be suitable to the budget; workers and the resources.
 Family should be recognized as a unit and the health services should be provided
to its members. n Health services should be equally available to all without any
discrimination of age, sex, caste religion, political leaning and social or economic
level et
 Health education is an important part of community health nursing. It should be
preplanned, suitable to conditions, scientifically true and effective.
 Community health nursing should be provided continuously, without any
interruption.
PRINCIPALS OF CHN CONT …..

 Preparation and maintenance of records and reports is very important in community

health nursing.
 Community health nurses and other health workers should be guided and supervised
by highly educated and skilled professionals.
 Community health nurse should be responsible for:
 Responsible for professional development.
 Should continuously receive in service training and continuing education.
 Should follow professional ethics and standards in her work and behaviour.
 Should have job satisfaction.

 Must have effective team spirit while working in the community.

 Timely evaluation is must for community services
FUNCTION OF CHN

 home visiting
 running child welfare clinic
 running family planning clinic or assisting
 assist in running ANC andPNC
 conducts school health services
 carries out or assist the PHN in inspection of day care centres
 collection of information or data from the community
 health education
 record keeping
CHARACTERISTIC OF CHN
 Caring relationships and partnerships with families and communities.
 People are seen as essential participants in the process of promoting health and
preventing illness.
 participant and facilitator rather than just a dispenser of medications or
information.
 Focus on empowerment of families and community. Allows the communities and
families acquire skills and knowledge so that they can participate in decision
making about their health
 Focus on the population and sub populations
 mutual respect and cooperation from both care giver and receiver of care to help
empower the people.
HEALTH NEED ASSESSMENT

 Health needs assessment is a systematic review of the health issues facing a

population leading to agreed priorities and resource allocation that will improve
health and reduce inequalities
 Three principles
 Improve what will have highest gain
 Integrate/implement improvement into current services
 Involve all interested/useful parties
 HEALTH NEED ASSESSMENT CONT
What is need?
need ≠ demand ≠ supply (and time-lag in-between, cannot look at need alone)
health need ≠ healthcare need
individual need ≠ need of the society
patient’s need ≠ view of patient’s need by clinician
 Need - a medical service that is wanted or required as the patient/ the society would benefit from it
(my definition).
 Health embraces the physical, social and emotional well-being of an individual, group or community,
not just the absence of disease. Newer: Ability to function normally in society.
 Therefore health needs also includes education, social services, housing, environment and social
policies.
 Healthcare needs include more than just treatment: prevention, diagnosis, continuing care,
rehabilitation and palliative care
HEALTH NEED ASSESSMENT CONT

 Bradshaw’s 4 types of need:

 Expressed needs (by action)
 Normative needs (by definition of experts)
 Comparative needs (by comparison of populations)
 Felt needs (subjectively identified)
HEALTH NEED ASSESSMENT CONT
HEALTH NEED ASSESSMENT ; how it is carried out
HEALTH NEED ASSESSMENT ; elements of HNA