Chapter 17

Self-care refers to individuals’ activities to promote health maintenance and wellness. The Seven Pillars of Self-Care include knowledge and health literacy; mental well-being, self-awareness, and agency; physical activity; healthy eating; risk avoidance or mitigation; good hygiene; and rational and responsible use of products and services.

Answers will vary but should include at least three options from the following: knowledge allowing better choices, activities, understanding of health, wellness, medications; increased physical activity, improved nutrition, decreased risks; hygiene of self and environment.

Group teaching enables a patient’s family or caregivers to assist with healthcare decisions and reinforce and remind patients of new behaviors and/or forgotten instructions. Group teaching also promotes interaction that can be helpful with questions and clarification of concepts.

Answers will vary; options include remembering different information; supporting, encouraging, and connecting with one another; asking different questions; fostering asking questions; fostering all learning methods.

Direct instruction involves active engagement of the educator and learners, with educators actively leading the teaching and learning. Indirect instruction involves learners using learned tools to fulfill an assignment, with limited involvement from the educator.

Answers will vary but should include that direct instruction involves active participation or involvement of the teacher, and indirect instruction includes using other tools to fulfill and complete assignments without direct interaction with the teacher. Direct instruction examples include lecture, discussion, question and answer, demonstration, and video; indirect instruction examples include mention of problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, experiential learning, and question and answer sessions specific to a laboratory class or clinical, demonstration of laboratory or clinical skills.

For nurses, educating patients and their families about their medical and healthcare concerns is both a natural and developed expectation of nursing practice. Health teaching and promotion, Standard 5B of the ANA Scope and Standards of Practice, includes seven competencies for the RN. Nurses are expected to engage consumer alliance and advocacy groups in health teaching and health promotion activities for healthcare consumers; provide anticipatory guidance to healthcare consumers to promote health and prevent or reduce risk; provide healthcare consumers with information and education about intended effects and potential adverse effects of the plan of care; provide opportunities for the healthcare consumer to identify needed health promotion, disease prevention, and self-management topics such as self-care and risk management; use feedback from the healthcare consumer and other assessments to determine the effectiveness of the strategies used; use health promotion and health teaching methods in collaboration with the healthcare consumer’s values, beliefs, health practices, developmental level, learning needs, readiness and ability to learn, language preference, spirituality, culture, and socioeconomic status; and use technologies to communicate health promotion and disease prevention information to the healthcare consumer.

Answers will vary but should include the notion that health teaching and health promotion is one of the standards of nursing practice, and provide example(s) from the seven competencies.

Checklists can serve as an independent evaluation or provide documentation of evaluation, such as direct observation of actions, return demonstration of skills, and verbalization of understanding. Checklists permit the educator-evaluator to make notations for listed skills, as well as levels of performance. Spaces can also be included for initials and/or signatures of both the teacher(s) and learner(s). Space may be allotted for comments, which is helpful when there is the possibility of a note being vague or inconclusive without explanation.

Answers will vary but should capture that checklists can demonstrate completion of tasks, whether accomplished, and, if necessary, whether accomplished at increasing levels of skill, up to and including fully understanding and acquiring the task.