Class 5 Unit 8 Overview and Outcomes (M)
Application of Health Promotion: Children and Adolescents
After completing this unit, you should be able to:
· Evaluate a person's growth and development, and determine normal and abnormal areas.
· Analyze safety and risk factors that contribute to the heightened vulnerability of toddlers and school aged children.
· Analyze safety and risk factors that contribute to risk-taking behaviors and situations during adolescence.
· Communicate immunization schedules and other safety and health promotion measures to a community group including parents.
Course Outcome(s) practiced in this unit:
MN505-4: Develop an evidence-based health promotion program to reduce health risks of a vulnerable population.
Application of Health Promotion
In this unit you will explore Health Prevention and the Health Promotion concepts related to the toddler, the preschooler, and the adolescent.
Growth and Development
In this unit you will examine the importance of growth and development as a framework for assessing and promoting health. It is important that the master’s prepared registered nurse understands the theories and concepts of human growth and development in order to understand the challenges an individual or family may encounter for successful growth, development, and maturation throughout the lifespan.
Growth and Development
Understanding human growth and development facilitates nursing assessment of health knowledge and behavior. Health education is more effective when the master’s prepared registered nurse acknowledges and incorporates growth and developmental needs as well as the individual’s prior understanding of and beliefs about health and health-related concepts. Anticipating potential health problems during infancy and providing effective interventions can promote health. Early detection and reduction of risk factors may lead to avoidance of many health problems. Health promotion during growth and development would not be complete without the inclusion of Healthy People 2020. The goals of the advance practice nurse, when working with infants and their families, is to promote individual motivation for health, to assist families in identifying health needs, and to develop problem-solving skills using the family’s resources. The master’s prepared registered nurse must identify a family’s perception of good or bad health practices which can influence participation in health promoting activities. Age, gender, educational level, cultural orientation, financial status, and occupation combine to influence health perception.
Application of Health Promotion
Toddlers eventually develop a sense of self and a desire to separate from their parents. Respecting this evolving independence is a common parental challenge. The master’s prepared registered nurse plays an important role in encouraging health-promotion efforts and behaviors by educating parents and other primary care providers about the many physical and developmental changes that occur in toddlers, and how these changes contribute to their vulnerability to injury, their overall health, and that of the family unit. The master’s prepared registered nurse must also be knowledgeable of the physical changes of preschoolers, and the need for preventative health care during the preschool years, beginning at ages 4 and 5. This should include an ongoing history of growth, physical, and developmental assessment.
The school-age child brings development from the immaturity of a preschooler, to the beginning of adolescence and eventual adulthood. The desire to master tasks, and the ability to develop moral judgment, dramatically increases due to advancing cognitive abilities. The master’s registered nurse can teach health promotion behaviors directly to the school-age child, through demonstration, monitoring, and reinforcing a preventative health practice, such as hand washing, dental hygiene, nutrition, and/or physical activity.
Adolescence is a time when the integration of family, peer, educational, social, cultural, and community experiences begins to take form resulting in a teen's sense of self. Adolescents face developmental struggles with physical and cognitive changes, autonomy, body image, peer relations, and identity. The master’s prepared registered nurse can be critical in influencing health promotion, preventative screening and disease prevention activities with the adolescent. The master’s prepared registered nurse must be cognizant of the important time of transition from childhood to adulthood, and should provide education to the adolescent about expected changes and how to deal with them. Primary prevention is effective when the master’s prepared registered nurse partners with the adolescents treating them with respect and enabling them to assume more responsibility in their role of health promotion and disease prevention.