Community nurses' health promotion work with older people

This paper reports a study describing community nurses’ health promotion work with older people aged 50 years and above, and exploring particular health promotion initiatives for older people that would have transferability potential. With the ageing of populations worldwide, community nurses in primary healthcare settings have a key contribution to make to the health improvement agenda for older people, yet little is known of the extent of this aspect of their work. Findings confirmed the wide scope of health promotion, much of which may be embedded and unrecognized. Creative group work showed promise in achieving heath gain for older people, and a range of partnership approaches – interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and interagency – was evident. Theoretical input and project opportunities within educational programmes had been a catalyst for health promotion initiatives in practice. However, evidence of audit, evaluation, and active involvement of older people in planning health promotion was limited. Funding of health promotion initiatives was vital to sustainability.