Achievement of Universal Health Care (UHC) in the Philippines requires capable health workers who can navigate changes and lead in the local implementation of health system reforms. Public health nurses are in a strategic position to lead in UHC implementation as they constitute the largest cadre of health workers in the public health setting, and core concepts of UHC intersect with principles of public health nursing practice. This paper aims to describe the development and implementation of a leadership training program for public health nurses in the Philippines, in response to UHC. Document reviews of training reports and evaluations, including course site data analytics, and evaluation of the training program were done for the four cohorts of the course. The University of the Philippines Manila College of Nursing, with support from the Department of Health, responded to the increased demand of the Philippine health system for public health nurses with strong foundations and advanced skills by designing and offering a leadership development course specific to PHNs. From November 2019 to March 2022, a total of 183 participants from 17 regions completed the training. With the COVID-19 pandemic and dynamic changes in governance, the experiences of the project highlighted the need for flexibility in delivering the training program, updating module contents according to the latest developments, and improving course duration and evaluation. Barriers to course engagement and completion must be addressed for PHNs, their workplaces, clients, and the health system to benefit the most from the training.
Nurses, Public Health ; Universal Health Care ; Nursing

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to investigate working time of nurses in urban public health center branch, especially for nurses for visiting health service and chronic disease management. METHOD: Daily note, which was developed by this research team, was distributed to nurses at 7 urban public health center branches to be filled out them for 2 weeks during 2 month from June 2007 to August 2007. We analyzed 121 daily notes recorded by visiting nurses and 65 daily notes written by chronic disease management nurses were analyzed. RESULTS: The total working time for visiting nurses at urban public health center branches was 589.85 minutes per day on the average. They spent 147.13 min in actual visiting nursing services, 149.36 min in documenting, 66.94 in preparing, 77.69 min in transferring, and 11.84 min in referring. The total working time for chronic disease management nurses at urban public health center branches was 582.92 minutes per day on the average. They spent 148.77 min in actual chronic disease management services, 120.62 min in documenting, 42.46 min in group education, 37.38 in preparing, and 10.38 min in referring. CONCLUSION: Based on the results of this study, it is recommended to improve documenting systems and to increase community resources linkage were recommended through the results of this study. The results of this study are expected to be used to plan staffing at urban public health center branches in the future.
Chronic Disease* ; Education ; Health Services* ; Korea ; Nurses, Community Health ; Nurses, Public Health ; Nursing Services ; Public Health*

The purpose of this study was to describe decision making model of 180 public health nurses in Korea and their knowledge structure for decision making. The differences of decision making models by nurse's knowledge structure were also tested. Research concepts were measured using the instrument based on systemic and interpretive decision making approaches that were developed by Lauri & Salantera (1995). The results were as follows. 1. The public health nurses turned to, most commonly, a mixed practical-theoretical knowledge structure (45.9%), followed by practical knowledge (32%) and theoretical knowledge (22.1%). 2. The six different decision making models were identified. These were named for decision making theories and nursing process. These were client-oriented decision making, rule-oriented systemic decision making, wholistic and intuitive decision making, decision making depending on subjective view and experience, systemic decision making for defining problems, and hypotheticodeductive decision making for defining problems. 3. The public nurses who had practical and practical-theoretical knowledge structure and community health practitioner (CHP) retold that decision making depends on subjective view and experience. Also the public health nurses who had 5~19 years clinical experience represented hypothetico-deductive decision making for defining problems.
Decision Making* ; Korea ; Nurses, Public Health ; Nursing Process ; Public Health*

OBJECTIVE: To compare the level of adherence of public health nurses to BP measurement guidelines based on their knowledge of the guidelines and skills in BP measurement before and after Blood Pressure Measurement Training Program (BPMTP).

METHODS: An experimental pre- and post-test design using twostaged cluster randomization was conducted. 118 PHNs (mean age ± 38.45 years, mean years of experience ± 13.45 years; 84.1% women) from six districts in Manila were equally assigned to either the BPMTP group or control group. Structured instruments were used.

RESULTS: Demographic characteristics, current BP measurement practices, and level of adherence to BP measurement guidelines based on knowledge of the guidelines and skills in BP measurement were equivalent in both groups at baseline.Nurses in the BPMTP group showed improved adherence (p=<0.05) compared to nurses in the control group. Both groups did not show significant change in their skill on recording, interpretation, and referral (p=1.000).

CONCLUSION: This study showed that Blood Pressure Measurement Training Package is feasible in improving adherence of nurses based on their increased knowledge of the BP measurement guidelines and skills in BP measurement. A larger-scale study is warranted to show that BPMTP can potentially improve clinical management of hypertension in public health clinics globally.

PURPOSE: It is extremely difficult to apply the model learned in basic education for public health nurses (PHNs) to conduct community health assessments. The purpose of this study was to clarify the process by which community health needs can be structured through PHNs' daily practice.METHODS: Semistructured interviews were conducted in 29 PHNs, and continuous comparative analysis using a qualitative study was performed with a modified grounded theory approach.RESULTS: The participants “used their five senses to understand the relationship between the health and life of people” and “considered those who do not attend” by “learning from stakeholders.” To verify such subjective feelings sourced from vague phenomena within the communities, subjective phenomena were converted into qualitative data.CONCLUSION: The application of the findings to organizational continuous education systems may not only help appropriately improve community health assessment methods but can also help improve the evaluation of daily practice and contribute to professional human-resource development.
Community Health Nursing ; Education ; Grounded Theory ; Nurses, Public Health ; Public Health Nursing ; Public Health

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to define and clarify the concept of health promotion 'competence' in public health nurses (PHNs). METHODS: A hybrid model was used to develop the concept of competence. The model included a field study carried out in Seoul, Korea. The participants in this study were 20 PHNs who were working in the health promotion area. RESULTS: The concept of health promotion competence was found to be a complex phenomenon having a meaning in two dimensions: personal-relationship and environmental-relationship. Four attributes and eight indicators were defined. CONCLUSION: Health promotion competence was defined as the ability to have understanding and flexibility in practicing (personal-relationship dimension) and to have capacity for uniqueness and leadership in planning (environmental-relationship dimension). Therefore, PHNs who work in the health promotion area should be equipped with attributes and indicators of health promotion competence to enhance their competence in health promotion.
Health Promotion* ; Korea ; Leadership ; Mental Competency* ; Nurses, Public Health* ; Pliability ; Professional Competence ; Public Health* ; Seoul

PURPOSE: The purpose of this research is to enhance organizational competitiveness of health centers as well as private medical institutions serving as public health and medical institutions. It tries to help them to cope with the requirements from health consumers, to enhance public health nurses' job performance. METHODS: After verifying the reliability of the tool, confirmatory factor analysis was used to detect a model, in which valid path coefficients exist among variables. The detected model was then selected as the subject and its validity was verified. Finally, a structural equation model was applied to verify whether the estimate was suitable for the purpose of this research. RESULTS: As for the nursing organizational culture, the public health nurses considered relation-oriented culture the most desirable. As for the self-leadership, they considered self-compensation the most desirable. It was found that mediating effects of self-leadership was partially significant. CONCLUSION: To enhance job performance, it is necessary to make a transition from the organizational culture to the relation-oriented culture and it is also necessary to develop a program capable of reinforcing self-leadership. In addition, it is necessary to conduct a research to verify whether such a developed self-leadership program is influential on job performance enhancement.
Negotiating* ; Nurses, Public Health ; Nursing ; Organizational Culture* ; Public Health* ; Work Performance*

PURPOSE: This study is a descriptive survey to identify emotional labor and job stress recognized in the course of administrative work, and how these affect the professional quality of life of public health nurses according to the employment type.METHODS: Data was collected through a survey of public health nurses conducted from Dec. 2018 to Jan. 2019 (N=232).RESULTS: The emotional labor of public health nurses was 3.27 out of 5 and full-time public health nurses had the highest scores. The job stress score was moderate at 2.45 out of four. The job stress of full-time nurses was also the highest. Among the sub-divisions of professional quality of life, compassion satisfaction was 3.55 out of five, while secondary traumatic stress was moderate at 2.48 and exhaustion at 3.01. Factors affecting compassion satisfaction were shown to be employment types and exhaustion. Factors affecting secondary traumatic stress were exhaustion, job stress and emotional labor. Factors affecting exhaustion were secondary traumatic stress and compassion satisfaction.CONCLUSION: The results of this study shows that full-time public health nurses in charge of nursing organizations at public health centers have extreme difficulty with excessive role responsibilities, resulting in high emotional labor intensity and high job stress.
Compassion Fatigue ; Empathy ; Employment ; Nurses, Public Health ; Nursing ; Public Health ; Quality of Life

PURPOSE: This study was done to identify and prioritize educational needs for suicide prevention competencies among 212 visiting nurses from 33 public health centers. METHODS: Data were collected from August to October 2017 through self-administered questionnaires consisting of measures of suicide prevention competencies. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, paired t-test, and Borich's needs assessment model to determine the priority of educational needs. RESULTS: Visiting nurses reported that enhancing skills in suicide prevention were more significant than improving knowledge. The highest priority need was “utilizing counseling skills.” In addition, other educational needs were prioritized as followed by; “a strategic planning approach to suicide prevention”, “applying therapeutic communication”, “showing empathy”, and “using resources in the community.” CONCLUSION: The findings suggest that developing intervention programs to enhance counseling and strategic planning skills are needed to improve suicide prevention competencies among visiting nurses.
Counseling ; Educational Measurement ; Home Health Nursing ; Needs Assessment ; Nurses, Community Health ; Primary Prevention ; Public Health ; Suicide

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences of capacity of local health organization to regional characteristics and the influence of organizational capacity on organizational performance. METHODS: The study used the secondary data for 160 local public health organizations from 5th Community Health Plans and 2009 Community Health Survey. The collected data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and multiple regression analysis. RESULTS: Work force and budget showed differences in regional size and elderly population rate. And consumer satisfaction and health care utilization showed differenced in work force and budget. The regression model with total number of employee, number of registered nurses, number of doctors and budget against consumer satisfaction was statistically significant (F=14.70, p=<.001), and number of registered nurses was identified as a factor influencing consumer satisfaction. This model also explained 20.5% of service satisfaction. The regression model for consumer satisfaction was statistically significant (F=45.98, p=<.001), and total number of employee nurses was identified as a factor influencing health care utilization. This model also explained 53.1% of utilization. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study imply that organizational capacity as work force and budget should be increased to improve the organizational performance as consumer satisfaction and health care utilization.
Aged ; Budgets ; Consumer Behavior ; Health Surveys ; Humans ; Korea* ; Nurses ; Patient Acceptance of Health Care ; Public Health*