Community empowerment has been studied as a process and result phenomenon throughout the last 40 years. Community partnership, which has been studied during the last 20 years, has been identified as a key process to promote intervention and research within communities. In this paper, we introduce the relation between these two concepts, from the research that is being developed at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Health Research (CIIS) in Universidade Católica Portuguesa. We comment on the available evidence regarding community partnership and community empowerment within the Nursing Decision-Making process. There is a particular focus on Community Health Nursing Specialists (CHNS) and the aim to promote the identification of CHNS as potential community partnership developers within society. It is also important to analyze how community partnership processes are intentionally integrated as a nursing intervention within the nursing process. This analysis should occur from the nursing diagnosis to the evaluation of health gains in communities sensitive to CHNS care in a Nursing Theoretical Model developed from a Nursing PhD process—the Community Assessment, Intervention, and Empowerment Model.

Enquadramento: A capacitação de comunidades, enquanto competência específica do especialista em enfermagem comunitária, remete para o empoderamento comunitário. Objetivos: Identificar os focos de atenção dos enfermeiros que desenvolvem intervenção comunitária, considerando a comunidade como unidade de cuidados. Metodologia: Estudo de natureza qualitativa desenvolvido através da técnica de grupos focais. Os dados foram analisados recorrendo-se à técnica de análise de conteúdo. O sistema de categorias sustentou-se no Modelo Contínuo de Empoderamento Comunitário de Laverack (2005). Foi estabelecido um sistema de categorias para a análise dos dados, sustentado nos focos da Classificação Internacional para a Prática de Enfermagem (versão 2.0). Resultados: Identificou-se 1 foco de enfermagem principal associado ao empoderamento comunitário (gestão comunitária) e 3 focos integrados como dimensões de diagnóstico do foco principal (participação comunitária, processo comunitário e liderança comunitária). Conclusão: Identificaram-se áreas de atenção que potenciam a tomada de decisão clínica dos enfermeiros associada ao empoderamento comunitário. Existem focos em enfermagem comunitária, relacionados com o empoderamento comunitário, conferindo um processo identitário alicerçado às competências desta área de especialidade.

Adolescence is a critical life phase for mental health and anxiety an emerging challenge for adolescents. Psychoeducational interventions to promote mental health literacy (MHL) on anxiety in adolescents are needed. This study aimed to test the primary outcome of a future full-scale trial: improvement of adolescents’ anxiety MHL components on recognition, prevention strategies, and self-help strategies. A sample of 38 adolescents, 24 (63.2%) females and 14 (36.8%) males, with an average age of 14.50 years (SD = 0.89) participated in this study. Each class was allocated to the intervention group (IG, n = 21) or the waiting list control group (WLCG, n = 17) with single-blinded randomization. MHL was assessed using the QuALiSMental. The ProLiSMental psychoeducational intervention consists of four or eight weekly sessions of 90 or 45 min for adolescents, using different active pedagogical methods and techniques. There also are initial and final sessions with adolescents, legal guardians, and teachers. There was a significant improvement with a small to relatively strong effect size in many dimensions of anxiety MHL components. This study suggests the progression to the full-scale trial and values the important role of mental health and psychiatric nurses in the adolescents’ empowerment for MHL in schools.

Community empowerment can be a process, but also the result of nursing care. To analyze it as a result there is an instrument that allows to quantify its level in nine domains. According to Melo (2020), health centers can be considered communities, becoming the potential target of community and public health nurses care, especially in the public health unit. One of the main functions of a public health unit is the epidemiological surveillance of the population’s health state. However, traditional epidemiological surveillance is focused on diseases and Melo (2020) proposes a new approach for epidemiology focused on people in what concerns nursing diagnosis. The aim of this research is to identify the level of empowerment of four Portuguese primary healthcare structures, named as ACeS, so as to improve the epidemiological surveillance of nursing diagnoses. As methodology, we developed four focus group with all nursing leaders from all primary care units of the four ACeS, using the Portuguese version of the empowerment assessment rating scale. The results present the level of community empowerment of each ACeS according to the nine domains of the scale. The needs of intervention to improve the ACeS empowerment were also identified in order to develop the epidemiological surveillance of nursing diagnoses.

Background: Learning and socio-emotional development is promoted through the creation and nurturing of an optimal school climate. This study aims to analyze the relationship between life skills and academic performance in a large sample of adolescents from the autonomous community of Aragón (Spain). Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on the life skills and academic performance of a sample of 7th and 8th grade middle school students during the academic year 2018–2019. A sample of 43 middle schools were randomly selected; the final sample comprised 1745 students. The following data were collected through an anonymized, previously validated questionnaire: sociodemographic variables, social skills, self-efficacy, affective balance, and academic performance. Results: We found a statistically significant association between life skills and academic performance (p < 0.001) in our sample. We also observed significant gender differences in life skills, with boys obtaining higher scores in cognitive skills and affective balance, and with girls achieving higher scores in social skills. Conclusion: We argue that life skills should be integrated into educational policies in order to improve the academic performance and health outcomes of students.