Question 1

A nurse has taught a group of nursing students about the similarities and differences between public health and community health. Which statement by one of the nursing students would best describe the similarities and differences between public health and community health?

Accepted Answer

Operating within an environment of rapid change and increasingly complex challenges, this nursing specialty holds the potential to shape the quality of community health services and improve the health of the general public by promoting healthy behaviors such as weight loss and smoking cessation. Community health can encompass both acute and institutional settings. Public health nursing involves focusing not only on the individual as the client but the community as the client as well.

Question 2

A nurse is reviewing the similarities and differences between public health nursing and community health nursing. Which statement would best describe the difference between public health nursing and community health nursing?

Accepted Answer

In this textbook, community health practice refers to a focus on specific, designated communities. It is a part of the larger public health effort and recognizes the fundamental concepts and principles of public health as its birthright and foundation for practice. Public health nursing is focused on the public aspects of health. Public health nursing and community health nursing have distinctive types of services and perspectives. Neither public health nursing nor community health nursing is practiced exclusively within institutions.

Question 3

Which statement is most accurate about the concept of community?

Accepted Answer

The broad definition of a community is a collection of people who share some important features of their lives. Community members may not live in the same geographic location as in a common-interest community or a community of solution. A population is made up of people who do not necessarily interact with one another and do not necessarily share a sense of belonging to that group.

Question 4

A group of students are reviewing material for a test on populations, communities, and aggregates. Which statement indicates that the students understand these concepts?

Accepted Answer

An aggregate refers to a mass of grouping of distinct individuals who are considered as a whole and who are loosely associated with one another. Communities and populations are types of aggregates. A population is made up of people who do not necessarily interact with one another and do not necessarily share a sense of belonging to the group. A community is a collection of people who chose to interact with one another because of common interests, characteristics, or goals, which form the basis for a sense of unity or belonging.

Question 5

Which would a community health nurse identify as a community of common interest?

Accepted Answer

A common-interest community shares a common interest or goal that binds the members together. Membership in a national professional organization is one example. The global community and a small rural town in a northern state would be examples of a geographic community. Counties addressing a water pollution problem would be an example of a community of solution.

Question 6

The nurse is working with a community of solution. Which would the nurse expect to find?

Accepted Answer

A community of solution involves a group of people coming together to solve a health problem that affects them. A common-interest community involves a collection of people widely scattered geographically who have an interest or goal that binds the members together. A geographical community is defined by its geographical or locational boundaries.

Question 7

Which statement made by a student would the nurse educator recognize as evidence that a student understands the health continuum?

Accepted Answer

Although society typically depicts an absolute line of difference between being either well or ill, health is considered a relative term. Thus, illness is viewed as a state of being relatively unhealthy. Health is typically described as a continuum that involves a range of degrees from optimal health at one end to total disability or death at the other. The line of demarcation is not clear. Health applies to individuals, families, and communities. Traditionally, most health care has focused on the treatment of acute and chronic conditions at the illness end of the continuum, but this emphasis is shifting to focus on the wellness end.

Question 8

When discussing the concept of the health continuum with a class, the nurse educator would be certain to include which statement in the description?

Accepted Answer

Wellness is a relative concept, not an absolute, and illness is a state of being relatively unhealthy. The continuum can change. Because health involves a range of degrees from optimal health at one end to total disability or death at the other, it is often described as a continuum and not cyclic. The health continuum applies not only to individuals but also to families and communities.

Question 9

The nurse leading a classroom discussion about leading health indicators and asks the students to give an example of one of these indicators. Which condition given as an example by a student would indicate that the class has understood the lesson?

Accepted Answer

Mental health is a leading health indicator. Other leading health indicators include physical activity, overweight and obesity, tobacco use, substance use, responsible sexual behavior, injury and violence, environmental quality, immunization, and access to health care. Cardiac disease, respiratory disease, and sedentary lifestyle are specific details assessed as part of overall health indicators

Question 10

Which statement best describes the difference between health promotion and disease prevention?

Accepted Answer

Health promotion includes all efforts that seek to move people closer to optimal well-being or higher levels of wellness. The goal of health promotion is to raise levels of wellness for individuals, families, populations, and communities. Disease prevention is targeted toward a specific disease or diseases and consists of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.

Question 11

A group of community health nursing students designs a health education program for a group of pregnant teens. During the program, they plan to teach the group about nutrition during pregnancy, demonstrate helpful exercises, and discuss group members' concerns. This is an example of:

Accepted Answer

The student nurses are engaged in health promotion activities. Health promotion incorporates all efforts that seek to move people closer to optimal well-being or higher levels of wellness. Treatment of disorders would include direct care for issues involving the group, such as complications that might arise in this population. Rehabilitation would involve activities to minimize disability or restore or preserve function. Evaluation would involve an analysis of the effectiveness of these activities.

Question 12

The community health nurse is developing a plan of primary prevention activities for the community. Which activities might the nurse include? Select all that apply.

Accepted Answer

Primary prevention activities are those taken to keep illnesses or injuries from occurring. These include teaching about safe sex practices, encouraging older adults to use safety devices in the bathroom, and providing regular immunization programs for communicable diseases. Cholesterol screening programs, skin tests for tuberculosis, and working with a group testing water samples for contamination are examples of secondary prevention activities.

Question 13

A community health nurse is preparing a presentation for a group of nursing students about community health nursing. Which description of community health nursing would the nurse most likely include in the presentation?

Accepted Answer

The community health nurse works with the client as an equal partner, encouraging autonomy. At any time, the nurse deals with continuous and episodic needs simultaneously. The community health nurse engages in primary, not tertiary, prevention as the priority and is obligated to actively reach out to all who might benefit from a specific activity or service.

Question 14

A community health nurse is working with other members of a team that will be implementing a city-wide immunization program. The nurse is coordinating the services and addressing the needs of the population groups to demonstrate:

Accepted Answer

Working in cooperation with other team members and coordinating services and addressing the needs of population groups are essential to interprofessional collaboration. In doing so, the community health nurse is preventing fragmentation and gaps thereby ensuring continuity of service. The involvement of the community and client participation are important, but both help to ensure that the clients are viewed as equal partners of the health care team. A plan for follow-up is a possible element of such a program, but it is not what the nurse seeks to demonstrate with the program overall.

Question 15

A community health nurse works to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number of people by applying:

Accepted Answer

The ethical theory of utilitarianism promotes the greatest good for the greatest number. Primary prevention activities, not secondary prevention, are the priority. Autonomy refers to the freedom of choice. Justice involves treating people fairly.

Question 16

Using Healthy People 2020 as a guide, the community health nurse would include which factor in a teaching plan to demonstrate that the targeted population understands the basic information provided during an educational session?

Accepted Answer

Consumers are often intimated by health professionals and are uninformed about health and health care affecting the quality of care. Adopting a teaching plan to ensure that the population understands the basic information addresses health literacy, the ability to read, understand, and use health care information appropriately. Doing so helps to ensure that the teaching plan will be effective. Self-care refers to the process of taking responsibility for developing one's own health potential by actively participating in promoting one's own health. Health disparities reflect differences in all aspects of health care related to vulnerable populations. Episodic needs are one-time specific negative health events that arise and are not an expected part of life.

Question 17

Which would be crucial for the community health nurse to address as the priority when dealing with policymakers about the development of community health programs?

Accepted Answer

Decisions for programs or services are often made based on cost-effectiveness or cost-benefit. Therefore, community health nurses must provide policymakers with information about best practices, grounded in research. Although population's make-up, amount of services to be provided, and scarcity of the available resources are factors that may need to be considered, the community health nurse must first demonstrate evidence-based practice.

Question 18

After a class that described the differences between acute care nursing and community health nursing, which statement by the class about community health nurses indicates successful teaching?

Accepted Answer

Community health nurses, in contrast to acute care nurses, seek out potential health problems by identifying high-risk groups and instituting preventive programs. They use a proactive, rather than reactive, approach and concentrate on the wellness end of the health continuum. They place less emphasis on curative care.

Question 19

Which activities would be associated with a community health nurse? Select all that apply.

Accepted Answer

Community health nurses work in every conceivable kind of community agency, from a state public health department to a community-based advocacy group. Their duties range from examining infants in a well-baby clinic or teaching elderly stroke victims in their homes to carrying out epidemiologic research or engaging in health policy analysis and decision-making. Providing care in an acute care facility would not be an activity associated with a community health nurse.

Question 20

The term "health" can be described in many different ways. How would the community health nurse define health?

Accepted Answer

Community health nurses view health as a holistic state of well-being, which includes soundness of the mind, body, and spirit. Along with this, foundational view is the emphasis on wellness, which includes the definition of health as well as the capacity to develop a person's potential to lead a fulfilling and productive life. Health is more than just the absence of disease or an environment free of toxins.

Quiz 1: The Journey Begins: Introduction