BACKGROUND: Community health activities by public health nurses (PHNs) are known to improve lifestyle habits of local residents, and may encourage the practice of infectious disease prevention behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. We investigated the association between prefecture-level COVID-19 incidence rate and the number of PHNs per population in Japan, by the COVID-19 variant type. METHODS: Our data were based on government surveys where prefectural-level data are accessible to the public. The outcome variable was the COVID-19 incidence rate (i.e., the cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population for each variant type in 47 prefectures). The explanatory variable was the number of PHNs per 100,000 population by prefecture. Covariates included socioeconomic factors, regional characteristics, healthcare resources, and health behaviors. The generalized estimating equations of the multivariable Poisson regression models were used to estimate adjusted incidence rate ratio (IRR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the COVID-19 cases. We performed stratified analyses by variant type (i.e., wild type, alpha variant, and delta variant). RESULTS: A total of 1,705,224 confirmed COVID-19 cases (1351.6 per 100,000 population) in Japan were reported as of September 30, 2021. The number of PHNs per 100,000 population in Japan was 41.9. Multivariable Poisson regression models showed that a lower number of PHNs per population was associated with higher IRR of COVID-19. Among all COVID-19 cases, compared to the highest quintile group of the number of PHNs per population, the adjusted IRR of the lowest quintile group was consistently significant in the models adjusting for socioeconomic factors (IRR: 3.76, 95% CI: 2.55-5.54), regional characteristics (1.73, 1.28-2.34), healthcare resources (3.88, 2.45-6.16), and health behaviors (2.17, 1.39-3.37). These significant associations were unaffected by the variant type of COVID-19. CONCLUSION We found that the COVID-19 incidence rate was higher in prefectures with fewer PHNs per population, regardless of the COVID-19 variant type. By increasing the number of PHNs, it may be possible to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Japan and provide an effective human resource to combat emerging infectious diseases in the future.
COVID-19/epidemiology* ; Humans ; Incidence ; Japan/epidemiology* ; Nurses, Public Health ; Pandemics ; SARS-CoV-2

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 was to develop a suicide prevention nursing competency program for visiting nurses, and to examine the effect of this program on suicide prevention-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.METHODS: A total of 66 visiting nurses were recruited from 10 public health centers and divided equally into the experimental and control group. For the experimental group, the suicide prevention nursing competency program was provided twice a week for 120 minutes across 3 weeks. Participants were asked questions related to suicide prevention knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors at pre, post, and 1 month after the intervention. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, a t-test, repeated measure ANOVA, and Friedman test.RESULTS: There were significant differences in knowledge and behaviors at the measured time periods, and significant differences in attitudes and behaviors between the two groups. There were also significant interactions between groups and times in attitudes and behaviors. These results suggest that the effects of the program were persistent until the 1-month follow-up.CONCLUSION: The developed suicide prevention nursing competency program is effective in evidence-based education for visiting nurses to increase suicide prevention-related knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.
Education ; Follow-Up Studies ; Home Health Nursing ; Nurses, Community Health ; Nursing ; Public Health ; Suicide

OBJECTIVES: We searched and reviewed the literature including the laws or acts, statistics, guidelines, papers and conference proceedings related to home visit nursing care in South Korea. METHOD: We searched and reviewed the literature including the laws or acts, statistics, guidelines, papers and conference proceedings related to home visit nursing care in Korea. RESULTS: There are three types of home care nursing in Korea. Public health center provides home visit nursing to vulnerable population by registered nurses for free, based on community health act in public health center. As of 2017, 1,261,208 people were enrolled in the visiting health program of public health center. Health behavior and disease management has been improved and showed having cost-benefit effect among the enrolled people in visiting health program. Visiting nursing care in long-term care services is provided by registered nurses or nurse aid, based on long-term care act. The cost is paid as the unit price according to service time. 1,095,764 older people used long-term care services in 2017, only 0.2% of total cost used for home visiting nursing. Even though the number of user of home visiting nursing, it was reported that users spent less medical cost and hospitalized shorter. Hospital-based home care nursing is provided to patients and their families under the prescription of a doctor by family nurse specialists who are employed by medical institute based on medical law. Four hundred sixty family nurse specialists worked for hospital-based home care nursing and hospital-based home care services accounted for 0.038% of total medical expenses in 2017. CONCLUSION: Even though home visit nursing care services are different in aspect of legal basis, personnel, running institutes, and cost basis, home visit nursing care showed cost-benefit effect and good health outcomes. In order to advance home visit nursing care, the integrated home visiting care, improvement of working condition, and revision of legal basis should be considered.
Academies and Institutes ; Disease Management ; Health Behavior ; Home Care Services ; Home Care Services, Hospital-Based ; House Calls ; Humans ; Jurisprudence ; Korea ; Long-Term Care ; Methods ; Nurses ; Nursing Care ; Nursing ; Prescriptions ; Public Health ; Running ; Specialization ; Vulnerable Populations

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study is to analyze the contents of disaster nursing education at universities in Korea and Japan, with focus on textbooks. METHODS: Disaster nursing contents from 11 Korean community health nursing textbooks and 3 Japanese disaster nursing textbooks were analysed. RESULTS: Three themes and 8 categories of disaster nursing content in the selected textbooks were analyzed. The themes classified include ‘understanding of disaster’, ‘disaster management’ and ‘disaster management system’. The theme of ‘understanding of disaster’ consists of such categories as ‘disaster concept/outline’, ‘classification of disaster’, ‘disaster management step’ and ‘disaster impact’. The theme of ‘disaster management activities’ consists of categories such as ‘disaster management activities’ and ‘disaster nursing’. The theme of ‘national disaster management system’ consists of categories like ‘national disaster management system’ and ‘international disaster relief’. From the comparison of disaster nursing education in the two countries, we found that themes were similar but there were differences between the two countries in content configuration. Korea and Japan have adopted the framework of International Council of Nurses for disaster nursing education. Korea stressed legal and ethical capabilities, while Japan included psychological support for disaster management service providers. CONCLUSION: Disaster education is an important factor in a nurse's ability for a disaster management. Development of a comprehensive disaster education program is necessary to enhance disaster care capacities.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Community Health Nursing ; Disasters ; Education ; Education, Nursing ; Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate ; Humans ; International Council of Nurses ; Japan ; Korea ; Nursing ; Public Health Nursing

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: 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

PURPOSE: Advocates for societal change and consumerism have been instrumental in popularizing patient involvement in various aspects of health care. Patient involvement in bedside handovers during shift changes should facilitate patient-centered care. This study's purpose was to explore Malaysian nurses' opinions about patient involvement during bedside handovers, and whether patient involvement during bedside handovers reflected patient-centered care. METHODS: A qualitative study with four focus-group discussions was conducted with 20 registered nurses from general wards in a Malaysian public hospital. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit participants' opinions. NVivo 10 software was used for data management and content analysis was used to analyze the data. RESULTS: Several participants used inconsistent methods to involve patients in bedside handovers and others did not involve the patients at all. The participants' interpretations of the concept of patient-centered care were ambiguous; they claimed that patient involvement during bedside handovers was impractical and, therefore, not reflective of patient-centered care. Some nurses' subjective views of patient involvement as impractical during bedside handovers were manifested in their deliberate exclusion of patients from the handover process. CONCLUSIONS: Changes in patient involvement and nursing practices congruent with patient-centered care require that nurse educators in hospital settings reform nursing education to focus on fostering of communication skills needed to function in nurse-patient partnerships. Guidelines for patient involvement consistent with patient-centered values should be developed using ward nurses' subjective views and introduced to all registered nurses in practice.
Delivery of Health Care ; Education, Nursing ; Focus Groups ; Foster Home Care ; Hospitals, Public ; Humans ; Nurses ; Nursing ; Patient Handoff ; Patient Participation* ; Patient-Centered Care* ; Patients' Rooms

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*