NURS 401 Community Health Nursing: Home

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Community Assessment Project (30% of course grade)

This assignment allows you the opportunity to perform course objectives in “real life” by assessing a community as client, arrive at a community diagnosis, propose interventions, and decide how you would measure the outcomes.  As seniors, you will also perform all areas of GFU Nursing Core Competencies in this project.  You will relate your project to overarching public health goals and Healthy People 2020 Objectives and Goals. 

The project needs to include at least 5 current evidence-based, data, peer reviewed Nursing and Public Health research journal sources, no more than 5 years old, applicable to your population.  A Fifteen-minute presentation of project to peers at end of semester.

Introduction- 10%

Describe the community. This section is similar to the demographic information about a patient.  For the community, it is a demographic description including Place, People and Function. Include at least 3 descriptors of Place, 3 for People/person, and 3 for Function.

Assessment- 25%

Assessment is similar to what you do with an individual in collecting data and information to critically think about how to understand the person, health, strengths, and goals.  For community, it is a process of identifying needs, clarifying problems, and identifying strengths and resources. 

Assessing community requires: 

1. Data collection- each of the following needs to be included in your assessment.
   1. Existing, readily available data such as age, of residents, gender distribution, socioeconomic characteristics, racial distribution, vital statistics, community institutions, health care services
   2. Windshield Survey- Use the elements of windshield survey and the descriptions as a guide as you drive or walk through the defined community.  Summarize the description in narrative or table format, describing each of the Elements. Some of the information needs to be obtained by gathering secondary data (statistics), which can be in column or table format.
   3. 2 key informant interviews- directed talks with selected community members, which include, informal leaders such as a minority Team member who has status in that community, church deacon, school nurse, social workers or other community member that represent or work with your community of interest.  Summarize each informant interview. Questions should be similar for each informant.
   4. Collection of already reported data, such as minutes to applicable meetings, community programs, ongoing health surveys such as BRFSS or YBRSS, CDC website statistics, etc. related to topic. (Behavioral [or Youth] Risk Factor Surveillance System Report)
   5. Literature review- What has been written about similar populations as yours?  What is the research, identified problems and potential interventions about this type of population?

2. Analysis of data, Identifying the Community Problem, narrative format
   1. From the composite database information collected above discuss in narrative format:

What are the strengths and problems for this community?

What are the risk factors?

What factors contribute to the problems?

What happens if the problem is not solved?

2. Decide which community problem to focus on, and state why you chose this one.
3.  

Community Nursing Diagnosis 10%

State your Community nursing diagnosis (4 parts). Support it with your data & analysis.  “______________ in ­­­­­­­­­­­(population focus here) related to __________________as evidenced by____________.”

Planning: 25%

(Goals 10%; Interventions 15%)

This section can be in “tables,” or blocks, it does not need to be a narrative paragraph. It should be easily readable.

1. State Goals 10% (broad statement of desired outcome) and Objectives (precise statement stating how the desired outcome will be achieved).  Use Healthy People 2020 as your resource here.  OR, there may already be community goals for this population!  State a Short-term goal and a long-term goal for your stated problem. Goals should have a community focus and be in SMART format.

2. Identify Intervention Activities 15% for each goal.    Identify who will do what.  Identify the Nurses Role in the interventions.  Include Evidence Based Guidelines (EBP Guidelines).  Identify Primary, Secondary and Tertiary interventions related to this problem.

Evaluation of the Interventions and Outcomes 15%

Interventions do not need to be implemented, but you do need to determine how would you measure their effectiveness.Gather ideas from Healthy People 2020 that has measurements for their objectives. Your text book identifies Demographics, Socioeconomic and Environment factors, individual and community health status, and use of health services as examples.

Team Reflection 5% (Narrative)

What are the strengths of the Team, what problems arose and how did you solve these problems?  What might you do differently next time you do a Team project?

Mechanics of Paper 5%

APA format including a title page, running head, section headers (Introduction, Assessment, Nursing Diagnosis, Planning, Evaluation and Team Reflection), spelling, grammar, citations, and reference page. Refer to GFU SON APA Format Guide.

Turn in to FoxTale in Word Format.

Uses/cites 5 current (within the past 5 years) Evidence-based data, peer reviewed Nursing and Public Health research journal sources

In Class Team Presentation of the Project, Peer Review Criteria 5%

Presentation should be engaging, present problem, assessment and desired outcomes.  How nurse will address with goals, intervention and evaluation. No need to present every piece of information from paper assessment.

• Team presentation-all members speak
• Visual Aids enhance the presentation
• Exhibits knowledge and confidence
• Professional dress, behavior, language
• Engages the audience in some level of participation
• Stays within 15-minute timeline.