Community health nursing principles and practice

¶ … Role of Community Nursing in Pandemic Flu Preparedness

The recent introduction of novel pathogens to the influenza virus has created a number of new strains which are distinguished by being either highly fatal or highly infectious. The Avian Flu (H5N1) and the Swing Flu (H1N1) have been the subject of recent outbreaks that bear the threat of pandemic capacity. As governments scramble to create plans of readiness in the event of such a pandemic, a lack of community level preparedness is reported in the article by Marshall et al. (2009) entitled Pandemic Influenza and Community Preparedness. The article, published in the American Journal of Public Health, details the cause of heightened concern, the needs still as yet unmet in terms of governmental preparedness and the roles to be fulfilled at the community level in order to respond to these needs.

This helps to point to the establishment of a key nursing role in helping to improve readiness. Evidence in the article suggests that while governments throughout the world have created various policies and plans of action for resisting the spread of an influenza pandemic but that obstacles to public distribution or awareness prevent these plans from creating a true protection. This points to the three primary influences in defining the role of nurses in the area of public health.

First and foremost, we understand nurses to be the first line of contact between the patient and the healthcare system. In the case of distributing information on how to prevent the spread of influenza, how to determine who should and should not seek a flu vaccination and how to gain treatment were necessary, community nurses are increasingly seen as agents of information. So denotes the article by Marshall et al., which finds that "engagement of the community as active participants in pandemic flu preparedness is considered essential if a successful prevention program is to be established." (Marshall et al., S365) This means that the role of the nurse as a direct line of contact to members of the community must be seen as a way to make actionable what at this juncture is empty policy. Community nurses should fulfill the role of medical consultant concerning treatment of the condition while regarding all cases as indicative of wider community patterns. This can be a crucial line of information to governments attempting to curb viral spreading.

This speaks to a second influence shaping the role of the community nurse, who must be an educator on the subjects both of the pandemic and of the true risks associated with the contraction of such viruses. This means that the nurse will use his or her discretion in order to evaluate those who are most in need of anti-viral drug treatment such as the young or the elderly. Uncertainties over the effectiveness of such drug treatment programs and various misconceptions among the public influence the role of the nurse as a diviner for that which is true and that which is false regarding treatment opportunities for such viruses.