Chronic Illness Nursing: Effective Management in Primary Healthcare

This essay discusses the role of chronic illness nursing in primary healthcare and effective management of chronic illnesses in communities. It highlights the importance of accessibility, public participation, health promotion, inter-sectoral collaboration, and the Ottawa charter's five action areas. The essay also mentions the increasing rate of chronic ailments and the need for healthcare professionals to undertake actions to help communities overcome the barriers of such disorders.

Running head: CHRONIC ILLNESS NURSING
CHRONIC ILLNESS NURSING
Name of the student:
Name of the university;
Author note:

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Primary healthcare ensures caring for people in a comprehensive as well as holistic
approach rather than simply treating diseases or ailments. The primary healthcare is the first
point of contact that service users have with the healthcare systems. The professionals working
in the primary healthcare centers are seen to provide comprehensive, accessible as well as
community based care that can successfully meet the healthcare needs of the individuals
throughout their lives (Coventry et al., 2015). This might include a wide spectrum of the
different types of services from preventions like that of vaccinations and family planning to that
of effective management of different chronic health conditions as well as palliative care
(Smolowitz et al., 2015). This essay would mainly be depicting one form of primary healthcare
nursing like the chronic illness nursing and will provide ways by which effective management of
care is done by such individuals in the communities.
A chronic illness usually is a long-term illness where it becomes necessary for the
affected individual to adjust his life according to the demands of the illness and thereby align
with the therapies that are used in the treatment of the condition (Moorhead et al., 2018). Such
disorders remain associated with additional stress since chronic illness are seen to change the
ways by which individuals live, visualize himself or herself and thereby relate to others
(Patterson, Thorne & Russell, 2016). The nursing professionals in the primary healthcare centers
are the first line of contacts for the service users who come for support regarding their chronic
ailments and gain the best advices to develop their quality of life.
With the passing of years and lifestyles of individuals becoming more sedentary and
technology dependent, the rate by which citizens are being affected by chronic ailments is
increasing largely. The quality of the lives are becoming poor as chronic ailments often linger for
long time, results in functional impairment as well as disability and have huge number of risk

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factors. The physical symptoms in course of time results in mental, emotional and financial
threats to such affected individuals (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2015). Therefore, the chronic illness
nursing are considered to have a huge responsibility in the primary healthcare centers to help
such affected individuals with different interventions that would help them to develop the quality
of their lives (Freund et al., 2015). Different types of chronic illness can affect individuals in a
community and this might comprise of heart disorders, diabetes, osteoarthritis, asthma,
Alzheimer’s diseases and many others. One of the most common disorders that have been
affecting adults is diabetes. This in turn remains associated with different forms of co-morbid
disorders like foot complications due to neuropathy, ketoacidosis, kidney diseases like
nephropathy, high blood pressure, stroke, gastro paresis and many others. Therefore, it becomes
very important for the primary healthcare professionals to ensure that such chronic ailments can
be prevented and can be treated for (Kadu & Stolee, 2015).
Only assigning specific medications to help people overcome the effects of diabetes is
not sufficient is ensuring healthy and safe live of the individuals. A large numbers of different
other responsibilities that also need to be taken in order to ensure comprehensive care for the
patients suffering from diabetes (All et al., 2017). One of the most important roles of the chronic
illness nursing is increasing accessibility. The nursing professionals should need to make sure
that the primary care services are available, affordable and should be provided equally to all the
service users irrespective of their gender, age, location as well as ethnicity (Martin et al., 2015).
Access to services should be ensured to all service users who come with diabetes regardless of
their ability to pay. The next important role is Public or community participation. The nursing
professionals should involve the resources of the community for promotion of the health and
thereby addressing the different health problems at the grass root levels. Another important role

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that is also important for the primary healthcare nurses is health promotion (Kim et al., 2016).
They should help the community to strengthen the socio-economic conditions that would be
contributing to good health. For example, on weekend’s evenings, the professionals can conduct
a health education class for the community dwellers so that they can learn about proper diets and
life style management systems necessary to overcome such disorders. They can also influence
the use of technology that are affordable, feasible as well as culturally acceptable to the different
individuals of the community. The nursing professional may help the community members by
helping them to be aware of many applications on their phones that will help them to calculate
the blood glucose level presently, after meal, before meal and many others. They can also help
the service users to remain socially connected over social media, with different groups online
comprising of similar diabetes affected patients and other healthcare professionals as that they
can gain knowledge and skills required for maintenance (Wallace et al., 2015). Another
important role is inter-sectoral collaboration. Every of the nursing professionals working in the
primary healthcare centers should know that the health and well-being of the community do not
depend only on the effective healthcare services. Governments, business as well as other
organizations in the different sectors have to collaborate for promoting health as well as the self-
reliance of the communities. Therefore, in this arena, the professional nurses have to advocate
about the issues faced by the community, accordingly coordinate, and work with the other
sectors so that appropriate help, resources and funding are ensured for betterment of the health of
the professionals (Kelly & Symonds, 2017)
The Ottawa charter is one of the most effective frameworks that help in development of
partnerships as well as support among the different organizations. This framework helps in
creation and maintenance of the different actions for promotion of health that would ultimately

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help in ensuring well being of the community (Fougere et al., 2016). It is very important to
ensure that every member achieves better health and primary healthcare professionals need to
collaborate with government, private, public, local authorities, international and non-
governmental organizations. The first action of the Ottawa charter is “development of personal
skills”. This action area guides the chronic illness nurses to help the affected individuals
suffering from diabetes to modify their personal behaviors so that they can reduce the risks that
remain associated with the occurrence of diabetes (Mosquera et al., 2014). The professional can
provide pamphlets and brochures through which she can help the affected individuals to develop
health literacy of the diet programs he should follow, the physical exercises that they can
undertake, cut down their ill practices of having takeaway foods, reduce sedentary lifestyles and
any others besides maintaining their medication.
The second action area of the Ottawa charter is called the reorientation of the health
services. By this, the chronic illness nurses working in the primary healthcare services need to
make sure that the healthcare services are accessible and available to all the individuals in the
community. Here the professionals can advocate on behalf of the people who are suffering from
the disorder but are not financially stable enough to carry on with treatments (Chan, 2017). The
local authorities of the government might contribute to help such individuals by financially
helping them through providing free medication and services that will benefit the patients and
will safe health for all.
The third area of action of the Ottawa charter is called the creation of the supportive
environment. These priority areas are mainly seen to focus and modify the environment situated
around individuals. This is mainly because it can determine their approach towards health (Kruis
et al., 2014). Here the professionals can advocate on behalf of the patients so that fields and

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parks are constructed in the communities that would allow them to understand physical activities
not only for adults but also for children. Moreover, advocacy for the availability of cheap but
nutritious foods in the market will allow people of all socioeconomic classes to get access to high
quality foods and reduce chances of occurrence of symptoms of obesity as obesity increases the
chance of developing diabetes (Rigs, 2016). Obesity reduces the acceptability rates of the cells to
be activated by insulin to take in glucose.
The fourth action area is called the building health policy. Here the primary healthcare
professionals need to focus on the implementation of the policies that mainly concentrate on the
different health barriers and gives options about how to remove them. This helps the diabetic
individuals the scope to choose the healthier option that will reduce the risk of them developing
obesity (Stewart et al., 2016). One example can be given here like the NSW Healthy Eating and
Living Strategy, which is a policy that had given individuals a wide insight about how health can
be kept, fit through effective strategies. This would reduce obesity and hence chances of
diabetes.
Another important action area is called the strengthening the community actions.
This will allow the individuals and the community to work together for ensuring effective
implementation of strategies and priorities so that everyone can achieve better health (Kruk et al.,
2015). The chronic illness nurses can arrange for seminars in collaboration with different
research and healthcare departments of the government where stalwart nutritionists will come
and advice the community about how to engage in effective life style management and proper
dietary systems. Moreover the nursing professionals can also arrange for dance sessions, physical
exercise sessions, counseling sessions in the community halls so that all members of the
community becomes aware about the disorders and take necessity prevention techniques

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(Sheridan et al., 2015). The people working in offices should be allowed to take food in canteens
that do not expose them for high calorie intake reducing the chances of diabetes.
From the above discussion, it is seen that chronic ailments are affecting every
communities at a faster rate than the previous decade. Therefore, there remains a huge
responsibility for the healthcare professionals to undertake actions so that they can help the
communities overcome the barriers of such disorders and live happy lives. Only providing
appropriate medications are not enough to ensure fit and healthy life. They need to ensure
accessibility of the community members to effective care services, refer tem accordingly to their
required therapies. Chronic illness nurses need to ensure public or community participation,
arrange health promotions to educate them. They should also ensure appropriate use of
technology and inter-sectoral collaboration so that all-important resources are available to them
that are required by communities to lead better quality lives they need to follow the five
important action areas of the Ottawa charter so that all aspects of healthcare are covered.
Therefore, the role of such professionals is huge but they can contribute in ensuring a better
future for the nation.

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