THE PUBLIC HEALTH NURSE

A. QUALIFICATIONS and FUNCTIONS

 Standards of PHN in the Philippines developed by National League of Philippine Government Nurses – 2005
 Functions
1. Management function
 Execution of the five management functions
 Planning
 Organizing
 Staffing
 Directing
 Controlling
2. Supervisory function
 Formulation of supervisory plan and conduct supervisory visits
3. Nursing care function
 Use of knowledge and skill in in the nursing process to provide care to individuals, families and communities
toward health promotion and disease prevention
4. Collaborating and coordinating function
 Bring activities or group of activities systematically into proper relation or harmony with each other
5. Health promotion and education function
 Understanding the multidimensional nature of health to be able to plan and implement health promoting
interventions for all clientele
 Use of skill in advocacy for the creation of a supportive environment through policies and reengineering the
physical environment for healthier actions
 As an educator, provision of information to clients that will allow them to make healthier choices and
practices
6. Training function
 Initiate formulation of staff development and training programs for midwives and other auxiliary workers
 Training needs assessment, design training program and conduct training with other resource persons
7. Research function
 Participation in the conduct of research and utilization of research findings in his/her practice
 Diseases surveillance
 Measure magnitude of the problem
 Measure the effect of the control program

B. COMPETENCIES SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE

1. Community Health Nursing Process
 Assessment
o Initiate Contact
o Demonstrate caring attitudes
o Mutual trust and confidence
o Collect data from all possible sources
o Identify health problems
o Assess coping ability
o Analyze and interpret data
 Planning Nursing Action
o Prioritize needs
o Establish goals based on needs and capabilities of staff
o Construct action and operation plan
o Develop evaluation parameters
o Revise plan as needed
 Implementation of Planned Care
o Put nursing plan to action
o Coordinate care/services
o Utilize community resources
o Delegate
o Supervise/monitor health services provided
o Provide health education and training
o Document responses to nursing action
 Evaluation of Care and Services Rendered
o Nursing audit
o Care outcomes
o Performance appraisal
 o Estimate cost benefit ratio
o Assessment of problems
o Identify needed alterations
o Revise plans as necessary
2. Nursing Procedures during Clinic and Home Visits
 Clinic Visit
 Blood Pressure Measurement
 Home Visit
o Family-Nurse contact which allows the health worker to assess the home and family situations in order
to provide necessary nursing care and health related activities
 The Bag Technique
o A tool by the nurse that will enable her to perform a nursing procedure with ease and deftness, to save
time and effort, with the end view of rendering effective nursing care to clients
o Principles
Performing the bag technique will minimize, if not prevent the spread of infection
It saves time and effort in the performance of nursing procedures
The bag technique should show the effectiveness of total care given to an individual or family
The bag technique can be performed in a variety of ways depending on the agency’s policy, the home
situation, or as long as principles of avoiding transfer of infection is always observed
 Nursing Care in the Home
o Giving to the individual patient the nursing care required by his/her specific illness or trauma to help
him/her reach a level of functioning at which he/she can maintain, or die peacefully in dignity
3. Community Organizing
 Key elements of community to bring social and behavioral change
 Social organizations
 Ideology
 Change agents
 Five stages
1. Community analysis
2. Design and initiation
3. Implementation
4. Program maintenance
5. dissemination
4. Health Promotion and Education
 Health Promotion
o “the process of enabling people to increase control over and to improve their health” – Ottawa Charter
for Health Promotion
o Prerequisite for Health
 Peace
 Shelter
 Education
 Food
 Income
 A stable ecosystem
 Sustainable resources
 Social justice
 Equity
 Health Education
o “any combination of learning experience designed to facilitate voluntary adoptions of behaviors
conducive to health” (Green et al 1980)
o “the process of assisting individuals, acting separately or collectively, to make informed decisions about
matters affecting the personal health and that of others” – National Task Force on the Preparation and
Practice of Health Educators (1983)
o Scope encompasses the levels of prevention
 Health promotion
 Specific health protection
 Early diagnosis and treatment
 Disability limitation
 rehabilitation
5. Surveillance
 Public Health Surveillance
o An ongoing systematic collection, analysis, interpretation and dissemination of health data
 Epidemiology
 o Study of occurrences and distribution of diseases as well as distribution of determinants of health states
or events in specified populations, and the application of this study to the control of health problems
o Backbone of disease prevention
o Main areas of investigation
 Study of distribution of disease
 Search for determinants (causes) of the disease and its observed distribution
o Patterns of Occurrence and Distribution
 Sporadic
 Intermittent occurrence of a few isolated and unrelated cases in a given locality
 Cases are few and scattered
 Endemic
 Continuous occurrence throughout a period of time in a given locality
 Epidemic
 Large number of cases in a relatively short period of time
 Pandemic
 Simultaneous occurrence of epidemic of the same disease in several countries
o Epidemiologic Triangle
 Host
 Any organism that harbors and provides nourishment for another organism
 Environment
 Sum total of all external condition and influences that affects the organism which can be
biological, social and physical
 Affects both agent and host
 Agent
 The intrinsic property of microorganism to survive and multiply in the environment to
produce the disease
o Factors Contributory to Epidemic Occurrence
 Agent Factor
 The result of introducing new disease agents into the population
 May also result from changes in the number of living microorganisms in the immediate
environment or from their growth in some favorable culture medium
 Host factors
 Related to change in immunity and susceptibility
o Population density and movement
o Crowding
o Sexual habit
o Personal hygiene
 Environmental Factors
 Changes in physical environment that may directly or indirectly affect the equilibrium of
agent and host
 Vital Statistics
o
6. Records and Reports