Nurse Responsibilities on Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, and Disease Management

Nursing Responsibilities
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Nursing Responsibilities
Nurses play a vital role in health promotion, risk reduction, and disease management. According to Ross et al. (2017), nurses are strategically positioned to advise patients on health-promoting behaviors, such as healthy diet and physical activity, and heath-risk behavior, such as smoking and alcohol abuse. Nurses, compared to other healthcare professionals, have the most contact with patients and, as such, have an opportunity to promote health, reduce disease risk factors, and manage diseases across the lifespan.
Responsibilities of Nurses in Health Promotion
Nurses have a responsibility to inform patients about health-promoting behaviors. Ross et al. (2017) reveal that nurses have significant knowledge about health-promoting behaviors and their role in preventing lifestyle-related illnesses, such as obesity. They transfer this knowledge to patients to ensure that they adopt and adhere to health-promoting behaviors throughout their lives. Nurses play this role by advising or counseling patients to engage in physical activity, healthy eating, adequate sleep, and stress management (Ross et al., 2017). This role occurs at the bedside and in the community, where nurses create and run awareness campaigns promoting the adoption of health-promoting behaviors.
In addition, nurses educate patients about health-promoting behaviors. According to Iriarte-Roteta et al. (2020), once nurses have assessed the health status of their patients, they provide information through patient education to help patients adopt health-promoting behaviors. Through health education, nurses provide information about health issues, such as obesity, and the behavior changes required to keep such issues at bay. Health education can be provided to individual patients during the provision of care. It can also be provided to communities through community workshops and classes, especially for a community that is the target population of the health promotion efforts. Health education promotes positive behavior change and increases patients' health literacy. Thus, through health education, nurses can empower patients with knowledge and skills that promote health.
Further, nurses promote healthy lifestyles by advocating for their patients. According to Iriarte-Roteta et al. (2020), nurses meet this advocacy role by acting as mediators between patients and other healthcare professionals who are more versed in addressing lifestyle challenges. For instance, nurses can advocate for patients by connecting them to dieticians to help patients adopt healthy eating habits. They can also advocate for implementing lifestyle programs to ensure patients have access to such programs and the services they provide.
Responsibilities of Nurses in Risk Factors Reduction
In addition to health promotion, nurses also have a role in reducing risk factors. This role can be accomplished through the health promotion strategies discussed above. For instance, nurses can encourage patients to exercise to decrease the risk of developing overweight and obesity-associated health conditions. In addition, it can be achieved through immuniza...