Health Promotion in Nursing Practice - Diabetes Essay Example

According to the World Health Organization (2018), health promotion refers to the process through which individuals are enabled to enhance and increase control over their health or well-being. Health promotion being a nursing practice, nurses have a critical role to play in activities aimed at improving health outcomes for patients. Diabetes is one of the most common chronic illnesses and is a leading cause of mortalities globally. This paper discusses three ways through which the health of a patient and family dealing with diabetes could be promoted.

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One way through which the health of diabetes patients and their families may be promoted is through education or awareness creation. Dietary or physical activity education of patients suffering from type 2 diabetes and diabetes mellitus can help them adopt positive health behaviors and lifestyles, hence improving their wellbeing. Educating patients and their families about diseases and health, supporting and creating positive relationships with them also help promote healthy living (Pham & Ziegert, 2016). For instance, such patients can be educated and trained on how to maintain a healthy weight, eat a balanced diet, and avoid a sedentary lifestyle. By creating awareness among patients and their families about the risk factors for diabetes, they are likely to avoid unhealthy behaviors and adopt the healthy ones, hence reducing the possibility of their conditions deteriorating. According to Clark and Paraska (2014), some of the health promotion strategies that can help patients improve their health include the provision of educational support and the use of techniques that induce lifestyle change.

Another way through which health promotion could be done in diabetes patients is through patient empowerment and involvement in self-care. According to Sorensen et al. (2015), patients and their families should be empowered to become co-managers of their own health so as to increase chances of effectively dealing with their conditions. Patient empowerment enables those with specific chronic illnesses such as type 2 diabetes to develop appropriate coping skills for managing the social, emotional, and physical effects of their illnesses (Sorensen et al., 2015). Empowering patients by actively involving and engaging them in the management of their illnesses helps them develop the self-esteem and self-confidence necessary for their recuperation. Furthermore, diabetes self-management that empower patients to be directly involved in finding a cure for their diseases have been found to reduce long-term complications by improving glucose control among diabetes patients (Shah & Garg, 2015). It also helps them gain skills and knowledge necessary for self-monitoring of the sugar levels in their blood.

The third intervention that could be used to promote the health of patients and family dealing with diabetes is family engagement and communication. As a study by Esch, Cornel, Geelhoed-Duijvestij, and Snoek (2012) shows, one of the feasible strategies in diabetes prevention among high-risk families is the promotion of family communication. Since family history is an important predictor of diabetes, the communication of familial diabetes risk helps in enhancing the perception of other family members about the risk of being diabetic. This family-based health promotion strategy for diabetes patients is effective because it has a positive influence on belief in primary prevention and family risk perceptions (Esch et al., 2012). It also creates a supportive environment. Further, given the role that family members play in the disease management of patients, it is important to engage them in self-care interventions as this has been shown to have a positive influence on their diabetes outcomes (Baig, Benitez, Quin, & Burnet, 2015).

To surmise, health promotion in diabetes patients and their families aim at encouraging behavior modifications and the adoption of lifestyles that improve their wellbeing. Health promotion in patients with this chronic illness could be done using strategies such as patient education, awareness creation, patient empowerment and involvement in self-care, and engagement of patients' families through family communication.

References

Baig, A.A., Benitez, A., Quinn, M.T., Burnet, D.L. (2015). Family interventions to improve diabetes outcomes for adults. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1353 (1), 89-112

Clark, C., & Paraska, K. (2014).Health promotion for nurses: A practical guide. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning

Esch, S.C.M., Cornel, M.C., Geelhoed-Duijvestij, P.H.L.M., & Snoek, F.J. (2012). Family communication as a strategy in diabetes prevention: An observational study in families with Dutch and Surinamese South-Asian ancestry. Patient Education and Counselling, 87(1), 23-29

Pham, L., & Ziegert, K. (2016). Ways of promoting health to patients with diabetes and chronickidney disease from a nursing perspective in Vietnam: A phenomenographic study. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Health and Well-being, 11. Doi: 10.3402/qhw.v11.30722

Shah, V.N., & Garg, S.K. (2015). Managing diabetes in the digital age. Clinical Diabetes and Endocrinology, 1(16). doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40842-015-0016-2

Sorensen, M., Korsmo-Haugen, H., Maggini, M., Kuske, S., Icks, A., Rothe, U., Lindstrom, L., & Zaletel, J. (2015).Health promotion interventions in type 2 diabetes. Ann Ist Super Sanita, 51(3), 192-198

World Health Organization. (2018). Health Promotion. Retrieved from http://www.who.int/topics/health_promotion/en/