Abstract
The purpose of this study is to clarify and define strategies of public health nurses who are involved in supporting and empowering the community members in order to organize health promotion schemes. Semi-structured interview was used. The interviewees were 12 expert public health nurses on 10 groups of community organization. The data were analyzed by inductive and descriptive method. Specific contents of the support and empowerment by the nurses were divided into 7 steps. Twelve categories and 50 sub-categories have been extracted from the processes. Seven steps found as follows; Step I : To set up goals in order to solve individual and community health problems by supporting them in organizing. Step II: To take a leadership role in guiding community members to agreement for the goals. Step III: To delegate the community members leadership role for health promotion gradually. Step IV: To lay groundwork for the community members to achieve the goals. Step V: To promote sharing the needs for health promotion among community members. Step VI: To instruct the community members in achieving the goals. Step VII: To work in cooperation with the community members for the goals. Supports characterized through the processes of empowering community members by public health nurses can be described as follows; ・supports community members in identifying potential needs and taking action. ・supports community members in realizing the importance of organizing themselves. ・supports community members in launching and managing their organization. ・supports community members in establishing community care system. Community organization was expanding its health promotion activities by utilizing human and social resources offered by public health nurses. This study indicated that these supportive activities, which were characteristic of public health nurses, were very effective for health promotion. The suggestion here was that the characteristics were notable on each step and that the outcomes would give a kind of framework for the health promotion activities by the community members.
