NUR344 Community Health Nursing Action Plan Assignment – Australia.

Subject Code & Title : NUR344 Community Health Nursing Action Plan
Assessment Type : Assignment
Target group : Indigenous Australian Children aged 3 and under
Health challenge : To reduce the number of cases originating of Otitis Media (OM) in Indigenous children
Promotion of health :
1.Educate the community members about OM and its effects on hearing loss and symptoms
2. Early detection of hearing loss in children
3. improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander hearing health
4. Educating the pregnant women about the importance of breastfeeding
5. Educate parents about the importance of good hygiene
6. Importance of regular ear check ups
NUR344 Community Health Nursing Action Plan Assignment – Australia.

Promotion of independence :
1. Involvement of indigenous community leader and indigenous health care work to promote this
program

Evaluation of strategies :
1.To minimise the risk of ear infection OM in the children
2. Collect feedback from General Practitioner about OM

Introduction :
As per studies some of the higher rate of Otitis Media are experienced in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children (DeLacy et al., 2020) and it effects 90 % of children in the indigenous communities in Australia (The Department of Health, 2020). OM is the inflammation and infection of the middle ear (Jones et al., 2018).The most common and wide known cause of hearing loss in indigenous children in Australia is Otitis Media Poverty, limited excess to services and overcrowded houses are the main reason of OM in Aboriginal children in Australia (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2018).Cognitive development, speech can be impacted due to hearing loss associated with OM which can impede language development in children giving rise to behavioural problems which can further affect their social, emotional and educational development (Su et al., 2020).

Community Nursing Action Plan :
The nurse will collaborate with various support groups in the community such as Aboriginal health council, community health services, maternal and child health services to implement CNAP. By doing so the community member will be encouraged to take responsible healthy actions which will result in their better health outcome (Durey et al., 2016). The nurse will introduce and educate the community members about OM and its effects on hearing loss and symptoms of OM so that it can be identified and cured as its early stages. The nurse can also educate pregnant women to breast feed at least six months of age to their new born babies (Bowatte etal., 2015: WHO, 2020). To reduce the risk of OM infection and to stop the spread of the disease (Zhang et al., 2016), the nurse can educate community and families members to avoid smoking and overcrowding and to maintain good hygiene in homes (Australian Government, 2017). The nurse can highlight how important it is to get regular ear check-ups so that OM can be identified at early stage and if present then the patient can be referred to doctor for medication so that OM can be cured (Qureishi et al.,2016).

NUR344 Community Health Nursing Action Plan Assignment – Australia.

Cultural safety :
As culture differs from community to community and/or home to home therefore culture safety is about providing health care to the community which fits the cultural beliefs and does not go against any of the culture value of the patient being treated (Cultural Safety, 2018). In the health sector culture safety is widely known and practised by the organisation that provide services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. In order to maintain culture safety and respect cultural beliefs of Indigenous community CNAP will ensure that all the stakeholders involved in providing health services such as healthcare worker, Indigenous leaders, Indigenous ear specialist and Indigenous community services implement culture safety (Victoria State Government, 2020).

NUR344 Community Health Nursing Action Plan Assignment – Australia.

Evaluation of CNAP :
To evaluate our CNAP plan the nurse will engage with all major stakeholders that were involved in providing health services, to gather their feedback and identify of any opportunity for improvement. For example the General Practinior will be able to provide feedback about OM presentation in the clinic, ear screening lab will be able to provide us with number of people who came to get ear checked.