NRS 429V Week 5 Discussion 1 NEW SYLLABUS ROBIN Re: Topic 5 DQ 1

NRS 429V Week 5 Discussion 1 NEW SYLLABUS ROBIN Re: Topic 5 DQ 1

Health education is used to teach people how their actions or inactions have affected their overall health and well-being. Health promotion is when this information is used by the individual in order to promote their own health and have positive outcomes. “Nurses are actively involved in both health promotion and health education, providing education that is necessary to help patients achieve control over the promotion of their own health” Grand Canyon University, 2018). The nursing process is vital in developing health education. You first begin by assessing the knowledge your patient already has and what kind of learning style they possess. Next you would make a plan of how you wanted to educate the patient and the strategies they would best respond to. You should then implement the plan. And lastly, you need to evaluate how much and what information you patient has retained.

When I lived in the Midwest one of the major issues that affected many friends and family was the opioid epidemic. Many people I knew were not prone to drug abuse but because of lack of education found themselves abusing opioids. This type of addiction did not care what social or economic status you found yourself at, it did not discriminate against anyone. “Health education programs are a vital component to end the opioid epidemic by preventing opioid addiction and misuse before overdose or opioid-related comorbidities occur” (Policy Brief A Nation in Crisis: A Health Education Approach to Preventing Opioid Misuse and Addiction, n.d.). In order to slow the addiction to these kinds of drugs it is important to educate every patient before they begin taking any of these types of medications about their addictive nature. This should be done using public programs so that they have the information before they are even given an opioid. They then can address the issue with their doctor if they are ever prescribed an opioid. “Therefore, health education is not only effective in its ability to allow community members to make informed health decisions, but to improve safety and quality of life” (Policy Brief A Nation in Crisis: A Health Education Approach to Preventing Opioid Misuse and Addiction, n.d.).

Grand Canyon University (Ed). (2018). Health promotion: Health & wellness across the continuum. Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs429vn/health-promotion-health-and-wellness-across-the-continuum/v1.1/

Policy Brief A Nation in Crisis: A Health Education Approach to Preventing Opioid Misuse and Addiction. (n.d.). https://www.sophe.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Policy-Brief-Heealth-education-and-opioids.pdf