Health Behaviors and Family Practices

Health and Wellness

• The World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" (WHO, 1947).
• Health is a state of being determined by personal values, personality, and lifestyle.
• Each person has a unique concept of health.
• Individual views of health vary across cultures.
• Life conditions can have a significant positive or negative effect on health before illness becomes evident.
• Socioeconomic factors, such as environment, diet, lifestyle, and psychological variables, heavily influence health status.
• Health beliefs and perceptions are influenced by a person's health beliefs.
• Positive health behaviors maintain, attain, or regain health and prevent illness (e.g., immunizations, sleep, exercise, stress management, nutrition).
• Negative health behaviors are harmful to health (e.g., smoking, drug/alcohol abuse, poor diet, refusing necessary medications).

Models of Health and Illness

• Nurses use health models to understand patients' attitudes and values about health and illness and to provide effective care.
• Nursing models allow nurses to understand and predict patients' health behaviors.
• This understanding enables nurses to individualize plans of care for restoring or promoting the patient's health.

Health Belief Model

• This model examines the relationship between a person's beliefs and behaviors.
• For example, a patient's awareness of a familial link to coronary artery disease can influence how they manage their heart health.
• A patient might not perceive a heart condition as serious, impacting the level of care they seek.

Health Promotion Model

• This model acknowledges that each person has unique characteristics and experiences impacting subsequent actions.
• Behavioral variables can be changed through nursing actions.
• Health promotion behavior is the desired outcome, leading to improved health, enhanced functional ability, and better quality of life.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• Nurses use Maslow's hierarchy to understand the relationships between basic human needs.
• Basic human needs are necessary for survival and health (e.g., food, water, safety, and love).
• Physiological needs form the base of the hierarchy; then come safety needs, followed by love/belonging needs, esteem needs, and finally self-actualization needs.
• Although individuals have unique needs, basic human needs are universal.
• Essential survival needs—food, water, shelter, sleep, oxygen—are the fundamental requirements.

Variables Influencing Health and Health Beliefs and Practices

Internal Variables

• Developmental stage: A person's thought patterns and behavior change throughout their life.
• Intellectual background: Knowledge about health, traditions, and past experiences influence health perceptions. Education affects patients' knowledge about their condition and treatment.
• Emotional factors: Stress, anxiety, and depression can impact health beliefs and practices. A generally calm person may react less intensely to illness, potentially underestimating their need for medical intervention.
• Spiritual factors: A patient's values and beliefs, coupled with how they live life, define their spirituality. Spirituality is essential when finding hope and meaning.

External Variables

• Family practices: Family perceptions of health concerns influence patients' health behaviors (e.g., a daughter whose mother did not undergo annual screenings is likely to take a similar approach).
• Socioeconomic factors: Social and psychological factors affect illness, and health care system organization influences patient access, costs, and type of care.
• Cultural background: Culture shapes beliefs, values, customs, and approaches to healthcare.

Wellness

• Wellness is a dynamic process of ever-changing health status.
• High-level wellness involves functioning to the maximum health potential, maintaining balance with the environment.

Lifestyle

• Lifestyle consists of daily routines and activities.
• Lifestyle habits directly influence a person's health. For example, high caffeine intake, cigarette smoking, high-fat diets, and sedentary behaviors can affect health adversely.

Self-Efficacy

• Self-efficacy refers to a person's perception of their ability to perform tasks.
• When clients are able to make informed decisions about their health behaviors, a sense of self-efficacy is a necessary component of nursing care, allowing opportunities for clients to take control of their motivation.

Health Care Attitudes

• Health behaviors are deeply rooted in beliefs.
• Socialization (occurring within family) shapes attitudes and beliefs about health care.
• Nontraditional practices, like herbal remedies or folk healers, can add to or reduce therapeutic efficacy.
• Gender differences affect beliefs, impacting healthcare engagement.

Health Promotion, Wellness, and Illness Prevention

• Health care is increasingly focused on health promotion, wellness, and illness prevention.
• The rising cost of healthcare motivates people to avoid illness.
• Health promotion, wellness, and illness prevention focus on the future, emphasizing motivations and goals.
• Healthy people 2030 sets objectives related to health behaviors, physical activity, preventive care, safe food handling, sleep, tobacco use, vaccination, and violence prevention.
• Primary prevention focuses on healthy individuals, promoting physical health, emotional health, and education.
• Secondary prevention addresses individuals with health problems, minimizing illness severity.
• Tertiary prevention helps those experiencing persistent illness or disability by supporting maximal functioning.

Risk Factors

• A risk factor encompasses any situation, habit, social, environmental, physical, psychological, developmental, intellectual, or spiritual condition that increases the vulnerability to illness or accident.
• Nurses in all practice settings have an important role in helping individuals adopt healthier habits and reduce the risk of illness.

1-Genetic and Physiological Factors

• Physiological risk factors involve the body's physical function.
• Heredity and genetic predispositions are significant risk factors impacting susceptibility to various illnesses like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and kidney disease, often manifest later in life.

2- Age

• Age influences susceptibility to illnesses such as infections, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
• Nurses should appropriately educate patients about age-specific health risks and screenings.

3- Environment

• Environmental factors (air, water, soil) can determine how people live, and the diseases they are exposed to, impacting their health.
• Exposure to environmental toxins like chemicals near toxic waste sites can increase the likelihood of certain diseases.

4- Lifestyle

• Lifestyle choices directly influence health.
• Excessive sun exposure increases the risk of skin cancer.
• Smoking increases the risk of lung disease and cancer.
• Poor diet and excess weight increase the risk for cardiovascular disease and other illnesses.

Impact of Illness on the Patient and Family

Behavioral and Emotional Changes

• Illness impacts the patient and family, altering behaviors and emotions based on the illness's nature, patients' and families' attitudes, the response of others, and the nature of the behaviors.
• Short-term illnesses typically cause few changes in a patient or family, while those that are persistent and affect the patient's physical function will require greater coping mechanisms and support from their family and healthcare providers.

Body Image

• Body image, the subjective concept of physical appearance, is often affected by illness, leading to changes in a patient or family's body image.
• These changes often depend on the type of illness.
• For example, amputation can result in shock, withdrawal, acknowledgment, acceptance, and rehabilitation phases.

Impact on Self-Concept

• Self-concept, the mental self-image of one's strengths and weaknesses, is also significantly affected by illness.
• Self-concept can be influenced by body image, roles, aspects of psychology, and spirituality.
• Nurses can offer support and counseling to help patients adjust to changes in their self-image due to their illness or injury.

Impact on Family Roles

• Illness can disrupt the established roles and responsibilities within the family, causing major changes for those involved.
• Role reversals within families are common.
• Ongoing changes, and the need for adjustment, can be overwhelming; thus, counseling and guidance are often necessary for the family to cope with long-term changes.

Impact on Family Dynamics

• The effects of illness impact family dynamics by changing processes including the daily functioning of the family, their decisions, giving support for individual members and how the family copes with daily changes.
• Families experience stress, coping mechanisms change and family dynamics frequently change.
• Nurses offer support to help families adjust and restore their functionality during illness.

Nurse's Role in Health Promotion, Health Protection, and Disease Prevention

• Nurses play a vital role in promoting health and wellness.
• Nurses motivate patients and families in developing health-promoting behaviors, such as education and lifestyle changes.
• An essential element of teaching involves motivating clients to make necessary lifestyle changes for promoting health.
• Nurse's provide guidance and education, preventing illness and promoting optimal health among patients, families, and communities.
• Nurses provide anticipatory guidance and education on topics like immunizations, nutrition, and safety measures to prevent illnesses like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and obstructive pulmonary disease.

The Nurse as Teacher

• Nurses take on the role of educators, guiding patients as learners.
• The learning process is based on identified patient needs.
• Nurses and patients establish a strong foundation of trust to empower the learning process.

The Nurse as Counselor

• Counseling is an interpersonal process guided by nurses who help patients make decisions fostering overall well-being.
• Warmth, friendliness, openness, and empathy are crucial components for successful counseling.
• Nurses provide caring support based on humanistic principles, essential in a counseling role.
• Counseling can address situational, developmental, and motivational needs, whether short-term or long-term.

This quiz explores the impact of family practices on individual health behaviors, the role of socioeconomic factors, and how cultural backgrounds influence health decisions. Additionally, it delves into the psychological aspects of body image and the challenges families face when dealing with illness. Test your understanding of these critical health concepts!