Perceived Health Promotion Practice of Nurses in Saudi Arabia

Facts Sheet: Perceived Health Promotion Practice of Nurses in Saudi Arabia The purpose of this report was to investigate the perceived health promotion practice of staff nurses in Saudi Arabia. The report states that due to globalization and modernization, the Saudi lifestyle has adopted some practices that are very unhealthy. There is a pressing need for the Saudi population to address such statistics by increasing awareness regarding the social, cultural and environmental factors that can both negatively and positively affect health. The potential value of expanding health promotion activities is highlighted by the WHO (WHO, 2002) who has stated that 80% of premature heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes could be prevented in Saudi Arabia through a healthy diet, regular exercise and avoidance of tobacco products. (Aldossary, Barriball, While 2012) A major help could be through nurses. Nurses have the potential to improve the health of patients because of their close interaction with the patients.

Nurses have the ability to influence and help educate and inform the patients about simple things they could do to change their life style. Unfortunately there is no current information on the effect of nurses on health promotion. So the study set out to investigate the views of healthcare personnel (nurses and doctors) and patients across the three healthcare sectors operating in Saudi Arabia (government, military and private) regarding the health promotion practice of nurses generally as well as their health promotion practice in specific areas (e.g. physical activity, smoking cessation and weight control). The study objectives were, to compare the views of nurses, doctors and patients related to three areas of health promotion practice: constraints on nurses, responsibilities of nurses and perceptions of patient responses to health promotion by nurses and; to compare the views of nurses, doctors and patients related to promotion of specific health promotion practice: physical activity, smoking cessation and weight control.

In view of the findings, a good quality interpretation service to improve nurse-patient communication should be considered. Policy-makers in Saudi Arabia need to consider providing appropriate training programs for nurses to introduce the wider concept of their health promotion role. Health promotion protocols, strategies and standards to support nurses to better implement health promotion with their everyday interactions with patients are also required. It is suggested that, while reliance on a largely migrant workforce who do not speak Arabic continues, focusing on improving the Arabic speaking work population remains a priority. (Aldossary, Barriball, While. 2012)

Works Cited

1. Aldossary A, Barriball L, While A.Health Promot. Int. (2012) doi: 10.1093/heapro/das027 First published online: June 19, 2012

Link: http://heapro.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/06/19/heapro.das027.full?sid=745dd949-d63a-4ef5-be70-4a26d4782eec#sec-3