Nurses’ Experiences of Promoting Healthy Aging in the Municipality: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to describe nurses’ experiences of promoting healthy aging in municipalities. A descriptive qualitative research design based on semi-structured interviews with 13 nurses was employed. The nurses described the importance of giving older adults the possibility to live as individuals, but also that the organization matters as too does the nurses’ own desire to work professionally and with passion. Nurses in the municipality noticed that in today’s world, there is a changing perspective of older adults. They more often want to continue their previous life and care greatly about quality of life and because of this, they also expect more service from their health care. Our study suggests that nurses should be supported to specialize in elderly care and measures should be taken to reduce the gap between vision and reality when it comes to team work.

Scope of Iranian community health nurses ‘services from the viewpoint of the managers and nurses: a content analysis study

“…The participants believed that nurses, compared to other health care providers, had the necessary scientific and practical competence to instruct, counsel, and provide care for the elderly in comprehensive health centers. In Sweden, nurses act as health gatekeepers to promote health and prevent diseases and play a key role in providing care to the elderly [ 63 ]. In a study, Kabayama also pointed out the importance of community health nurses in providing long-term services to the elderly in care centers.…”

Relationship between Quality of Life, Depression, and Participation in Elderly Integrated Health Service Post among Older Adults

“…Therefore, in order to promote healthy aging, the community nurses should also concern older adults within communities (Manasatchakun et al, 2018). Nurses should be the support for older adults to live the way they want to be as independent peopleFurthermore, it is important for nurses to not only focus on treating older adults but also maintaining their physical, psychological, cognitive, and social wellbeing (Wu et al, 2020). Community health nurses also need to focus on improving autonomy in elderly care and perform a professional nursing assessment.…”

Health Promotion and Disease Prevention in the Elderly: The Perspective of Nursing Students

“…The maintenance of the elderly in their social context fits in with the strategies for an active, participatory, healthy aging and is an illustration of true centered care with a holistic and integrative vision, emphasizing self-determination and valorization of individual characteristics, expectations, and potentialities and assigning them an active role as decisionmakers as agents of their own lives [8,[14][15][16][17]. For this to happen, health promotion and disease prevention in this population should involve the adoption of healthy lifestyles and the inclusion of strategies promoting health literacy [9,10], contributing to their learning and development of skills that promote their health.…”

“…This preventive approach is a strategy at the primary health care level and requires significant community participation, with the involvement of multiple partners through mechanisms to improve people's literacy level and the creation of environments conducive to promoting and protecting elderly health [7][8][9][13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…The principle of aging in place advocates that the elderly should remain in their own place, in their own homes, and in the social context that contributes to their autonomy, according to their preferences [8]. The difficulties and limitations that arise with the advancing age can be minimized with social and health responses, which are compatible with policies for caring elderly at home and are promoters of active and successful aging [8,14,15].…”