Community & Public Health Nursing 9th Edition PDF

Barbara Spradley began the first edition of this book in 1981, and the ninth edition of Community and Public Health Nursing: Promoting the Public’s Health continues to provide undergraduate nursing students with an introduction to public health and populationfocused nursing in the community. Nursing in community settings may include sites such as public health departments, schools, correctional facilities, community-based organizations, churches and parishes, as well as industrial or business settings. Although most newly graduated nurses plan to work in hospital and acute care settings, especially since the bulk of their education has been focused toward that end, it is still important to provide a solid grounding in public and community health nursing. That content is what distinguished university-prepared nurses from hospital or diploma nurses early on, and it remains an important area of practice. Knowledge of public health nursing provides new nurses with a broader focus of patient care (e.g., families, aggregates, communities, populations, and not just individual patients).

Even though a new graduate may choose to work in a hospital setting, it is still important for the nurse discharging the patient to have an understanding of the patient’s unique circumstances and how to best join with the patient and their family in working to prevent further illness and promote better health. To help students better understand the “whole” patient, throughout this book, students are provided with examples and information that will broaden their knowledge of patients and enable them to provide more effective nursing care—wherever they may choose to be employed. Population-focused tools and interventions are needed in acute care, as infection rates continue to rise and nurse-sensitive outcome indicators are closely monitored. Nonpayment for medical errors or early hospital readmissions is becoming the norm, and nurses are involved in quality improvement and patient safety at all levels of practice and in all practice settings. In the process of learning about public health nursing, it is hoped that a spark may be lit in those nursing students interested in this nursing specialty and its rich history. Public health nurses often work in a more autonomous practice setting and can have a real impact on the general health status of their communities through large-scale interventions and political advocacy. Nurses working in the community are important role models for social justice and are on the front line of communicable disease prevention and control.