Date of Award
2019
Document Type
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
Degree Name
Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)
Department
Nursing
Committee Chair
Lenora Smith
Committee Member
Angela Caires
Subject(s)
Self-care, Health, Chronic diseases, Geriatric nursing
Abstract
Background: Chronic conditions within the aging population have continued to rise causing a significant impact in the clinical setting for both patient care and health outcomes with the increased use of health care services and repeat hospitalizations. This project attempts to determine the effectiveness of health promotion education in the increasing of health promotion knowledge, positive behavioral changes and chronic disease self-management implementation for individuals within the senior center atmosphere. Methods: The design utilized a quantitative, empirical method. The population focus included older adults at a local senior center, ages 60-85 who actively attended the senior center and had access to both an email account and a physical mailing address. A non-probability, convenience sample was used from the patients participating in the service at a metropolitan, not-for-profit senior center facility. Initially 29 participants were recruited. The intervention included eight (8) emails, two (2) monthly mailed newsletters and quick reference guides that provided health promotion education which can be applied in daily life to improve both the individuals’ quality of life and health outcomes as measured by the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II survey. Results: The initial cohort consisted of 29 individuals; 20 female/9 male, whom 4 were later excluded from the final analysis due to not completing the post-intervention final survey. The evaluation of various aspects of healthy living were considered after the project’s intervention of health promotion education pieces. Seven sub-scales were assessed: Health-Promoting Lifestyle, Health Responsibility, Physical Activity, Nutrition, Spiritual Growth, Interpersonal Relations and Stress Management. The survey consisted of 52 variables in which 37 pairs were found to have significant differences (P = 0.05) while 15 were not significant (P = >.05) with the paired t-test. The post intervention data revealed that the participant health education levels were improved following the implementation of the health promotion educational pieces as compared to pretest data. Conclusions: Educational pieces that cover health promoting topics including nutrition, exercise, disease pathology, and motivation distributed through electronic and physical methods showed marked improvements in individuals health education issues. It further showed significant differences post intervention in the health-promoting lifestyle, health responsibility, nutrition and spiritual growth sub-scales. The provision of educational pieces and the statistically significant outcomes has shown to be a valuable technique for the provision of health promotion education within this population.
Recommended Citation
Slovak, Suzanne E., "Initiation of a health promotion program in chronic disease self-management for senior center participants" (2019). Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP). 31.
https://louis.uah.edu/uah-dnp/31