Identify knowledge & skills of PHC Nurses related health educatio - Literature review Example

To describe precisely the skills, knowledge and attitudes that PHC nurses should posses with reference to healthcare education to the patients and the public. To measure the nurse’s level of scientific knowledge, required for health education at the PHC centres. The following sections presents a literature review of studies focused on different areas inside and outside Saudi Arabia. As the proposed research need to redefine the variables involved giving due attention to existing findings, these studies provide valuable information to start with, to describe precisely the skills, knowledge and attitudes that PHC nurses should posses with reference to healthcare education.

Review of Literature Rasheed, and Al-Sowielem (2003) have examined the level of health awareness related to pregnancy and the sources of information among women visiting the Primary Health Centers in Al- Khobar, Saudi Arabia. This study is important to the context of this research because it has pointed to the fact that PHC nurses are poor sources of health information (p.37-38). This study has used a questionnaire to survey 581 women in child bearing age and this huge sample size lends great credibility to the findings that this study endorses.

The study has explored whether information on food, rest, exercise, breast care, rubella, smoking, safe maternal age, spacing between pregnancies, and antenatal care, were available to the members of the sample and if so, what were the sources of this health information for them (Rasheed, and Al-Sowielem, 2003). The results showed that there was inadequate information given to the pregnant women from the PHC staff (Rasheed, and Al-Sowielem, 2003). Also, the authors mentioned that educational intervention during antenatal period is highly effective in improving the knowledge and health habits of pregnant women, an intervention that PHC nurses alone get the opportunity to impart with maximum effectiveness.

Therefore, from this study it is necessary that nurses have knowledge on information about food, breast cancer among other factors significant for health education of pregnant women. Similarly, Al-Amoud (2003) showed from a study that there is need for PHC nurses to be equipped with knowledge or information about breast feeding so that they can assist breast feeding mothers with appropriate information during health education. The study examined the breastfeeding practice among women attending primary health centres in Riyadh that there is a clear decline of breastfeeding in Saudi Arabia.

This study (Al-Amoud, 2003) has indirectly pointed to the need for improving training of PHC professionals including nurses so that they can give better education to the mothers on the importance of breastfeeding. These results of this study have been obtained through examining variables such as, number of children alive, marital status, occupation, and the level of education (Al-Amoud, 2003). Almalki, FitzGerald, and Clark (2012) in their investigation of nursing education in PHC setting have also stressed the important of the furthering nursing education in PHC setting.

This is one of the main findings of the study carried out to assess the quality of work life among PHC Nurses in Jazan, south of Saudi Arabia (Almalki,