The Importance of Living a Healthy Lifestyle with Proper Nutrition and Exercise - Research Paper Example

? The Importance of Healthy Living with Proper Nutrition and Exercise in Nursing Nurses work in environments that are not conducive to practicing healthy lifestyles. There are a lot of constraints for them that hinder them from making healthy choices. It is one of the duties of nurses to promote health and prevent diseases and this can be achieved if the nurses themselves are living healthy lifestyles. This study will try to confirm if the lifestyles of nurses are really as bad as some reports suggest and with the help of surveys, a program centered on helping nurses make healthy lifestyle choices will be made to cater to their needs. This will be suggested to the hospital’s administration and would hopefully impact the wellbeing of the nurses and in turn impact the wellbeing of the patients as well. Keywords: Nurses, healthy living, healthy choices The Importance of Healthy Living with Proper Nutrition and Exercise in Nursing I. Introduction A lot of people measure one’s credibility and character by the concept of “walking the talk” and “doing what you preach”. In no other profession is this more applicable than that of the health professionals, most especially nurses. A nurse’s primary objective is to promote health and prevent diseases (Hensel, 2009, p.2). Whether the patient is confined in the hospital or is treated in an outpatient facility, one of the most important roles nurses have is to promote healthy living in patients so that their quality of life will be improved. However, is seems that more and more nurses succumb to poor health themselves, and practice unhealthy habits that turn their health conditions for the worse. The working environment for nurses is not really optimal for the practice of healthy lifestyle. Nurses often work long hours and take night shifts regularly. They are faced with myriad stresses throughout the day. They often neglect to take ample rest, practice good nutrition, and exercise because of their busy schedules. Most hospitals also are not consciously putting up effort to keep the workplace healthy, and normally, the toxicity in the hospitals caused by stress, erratic schedules, and competition are what makes nurses retire early and shift to a different and less strenuous profession. It would be ideal if nurses be the primary examples of healthy living for their patients rather than be bad influences. In this regard, this paper aims to (1) Confirm the actual health status of nurses in a local hospital and how it is affecting the treatment of patients, (2) suggest ways on how to incorporate healthy lifestyle choices for nurses in the hospital, and (3) Get the potential impact of better lifestyle practices of nurses with regards to their patients. Patients will be more responsive with adapting healthier and better lifestyles if the nurses attending them are also practicing healthy life styles. II. Review of Literature In 2003, Hasselthorn et al. (as cited by Hensel, 2009, p.42-43) performed an experiment among 33,491 nurses from across 10 European Countries and studied their views of health and work ability using the Work Ability Index (WAI). Highly stressed and burned out individuals showed lower WAI scores while nurses with good health are the ones with higher WAI scores. He and his colleagues observed that from all the nurses who participated in the study, there was twice the probability of nurses leaving their profession if they had low WAI scores than those with higher WAI scores. The nurses’ perception of their health also affects their perception of how well they are able to do their job. Health affects competence and this is one of the biggest reasons why nurses quit their jobs regardless of gender or age. If the health of nurses is on a decline, then the population of practicing nurses will continue to decline and the shortage for nurses will continue placing much stress and burden to those nurses who chose to remain in service. Without nurses, hospitals (may it be private or state owned and run) will cease to function because most of the treatments administered to patients are done by nurses. These hospitals can do a lot to encourage nurses to practice healthy living and thus make the nurses stay in their profession. In a study sponsored by Optum Health, one of the largest companies that specializes on corporate health and initiatives of administrators to promote wellness in the workplace, they found out that 87% of employees say that it is ok for employers to pursue ways to encourage their employees to adapt a healthy lifestyle. 84% said that they view efforts for done by their companies to promote good health a way to show that the companies value their employees. 60% of employed persons included in the survey who had lost weight or had stopped smoking credited their company’s efforts in promoting healthy lifestyles as a bulwark that encouraged them to pursue their goals. This is a strong indication that if a company emphasizes on better health practices then their employees are more encouraged to do so and also they are less likely to leave because they know that their company is concerned not only for profits but also for the wellbeing of their work force (Karlula and Rosen, 2011, p.3). Nurses have the most time with patients. Nurses who are assigned in the chronically ill ward tend to have patients who stay in the hospital for months and these patients observe their behaviors all throughout their stay. However, there is little fact known about how nurse’s lifestyle affects their relationship and interaction with their patients. Certainly, a person who sees and interacts with another person daily will imbibe some of the characteristics of that person. If the nurses that the patient interacts with are seen as examples of living healthy lifestyles, then the patients may imbibe this and thus make better lifestyle choices for themselves. Nurses hold a certain position of influence towards patients and they need to exercise that with regards to promoting healthy lifestyles in their patients. III. Research Methodology Both nurses and patients need to supply data for the analysis to work. The study will be done through the distribution and filling up of survey questionnaires. For us to evaluate the lifestyles of nurses, a local hospital will be asked to participate in a survey. The administrators of the hospital will be asked for the names of the nurses for each ward and a representative sample will be taken from each ward to answer the survey questionnaire. The participants should also represent the nurses that work the night shift. These set of 10 questions are devised so as to get baseline data and the perceptions of nurses on their health: 1. How would you describe a person that lives a “healthy lifestyle”? 2. Do you see yourself as healthy or someone who practices healthy lifestyle choices? (yes or no) 3a. If yes, what healthy things do you do? 3b. If no, what are the constraints that keep you from living a healthy lifestyle? 4. Does your personal health affect your work? In what ways? 5. Are you conscious that your patients look up to you as an example for health? 6. Rate your place of work with regards to emphasis and support on promoting good health in the workplace? (5- excellent, 4-very good, 3-Good, 2-poor, 1 - lacking) 7. If the hospital you work in gave incentives for practicing healthy lifestyle (weight loss, help for those who want to quit smoking, etc.) within the workplace, are you in favor of it? (yes or no) 8. And it this program gets started, will you participate in it? (yes or no) 9. As a nurse, you would be able to do your job well if you have lifestyle issues (being overweight/ underweight, smoking, etc.)? 10. Is it important for you to be a good example to your patients? The next sets of questions are for the selected patients/ their guardians so that the view will be balanced with the perception of the patients of their nurse’s health. The participant patients will also be randomly selected with respect to the ward they belong and they will be asked the following questions in survey form: 1. How important is it for you that your attendant nurse practices a healthy lifestyle? (3-very important, 2- considerably important, 1- not important) 2. How many times in a day do you interact with nurses? 3. Are you influenced by your nurse? If so, in what ways? a. Not influenced b. Keeping a positive attitude towards recovery c. Readiness for subsequent procedures d. Others:______________________ IV. Expected Outcome The data will be collected and tabulated from the survey questionnaires and will be analyzed for trends and patterns for the nurse’s perspective and the patient’s perspective. This data will be compared to the data gathered in different sources and the trends will also be compared. Depending on the constraints identified by the nurses on why they can’t pursue a healthy lifestyle, recommendations will be given and a healthy lifestyle program will be designed to cater to the nurses’ needs. Many of the diseases common nowadays can be prevented or eased by lifestyle choices, and nurses have the vantage point in influencing their patients to make to make healthy choices (Davis, 2011). If the nurses themselves will practice healthy lifestyles, then the nurses and the patients will reap the full advantage of this choice. The administration of the hospital will also be given a copy of the results of this paper. If given the chance, the implication of the results of the survey will be reported to them and the necessary actions that they will have to undertake will also be suggested so as to help them get their nurses to fulfill their duties better. The administrators of the hospital will actually benefit from this study the most because with a few adjustments in their policies and also with the support that they will be giving to help nurses life healthier, then they will reap the rewards of having a nursing staff with less sick days and more patients will come to their hospitals because their nurses don’t only give prescribed medicine or monitor their vitals, but they are concerned about the health and wellbeing of the patients even outside the hospital. This type of care will boost profits for the hospital, and the administrators have the power and capability to make all of these possible just by being sensitive to the health needs of their nurses. References Davis, N. (2011). Healthier Lifestyles: Behavior change. Nursing Times. EMAP Publishing Limited Company, Top Right Group, The Prow, 1 Wilder Walk, London, W1B 5AP. http://www.nursingtimes.net/nursing-practice/clinical-zones/public-health/healthier-lifestyles-behaviour-change/5030976.article Hensel, D. (2009). The Relationships Among Health Status, Healthy Lifestyles, and Nursing self-concept among Professional Nurses. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway, P.O. Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346. pp. 1-13, 32-60 Karkula, L. and Rosen, M. W. (2011). The Importance of Promoting Healthy Lifestyles in the Workplace: An OptumHealth Research Study. Optum Inc., 13625 Technology Drive, Eden Prairie, MN 55344. Read More