Abstract
Objective: According to the World Health Organization, health promotion efforts are most successful when a holistic health promoting environment is created rather than focusing myopically on individual-level cognition and behavior. We examined the importance of the surrounding environment when public health nurses (PHNs) conduct health guidance exercises and determined related PHN background factors.
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, a self-administered questionnaire was sent to 149 PHNs working at health checkup centers in seven different prefectures in the western region of Japan. Overall, 83 PHNs met the inclusion/exclusion criteria and submitted for assessment. The questionnaire consisted of items covering 1) cognition regarding the importance of surrounding environment factors and the thought process and subsequent behavior of those receiving health guidance, and 2) PHNs' professional background. Relationships among measured factors were analyzed by chi-square or Mann-Whitney tests, as appropriate.
Results: Although more than 70% of participants indicated “informational environment” and “sociocultural environment at home” as important, fewer indicated the importance of “social environment” and “sociocultural environment at worksite.” The latter set of variables was unrelated to PHNs' years of health guidance experience. However, the proportion of PHNs citing the importance of surrounding environment factors was lower among those who had support opportunities beyond health guidance compared to those with fewer such opportunities, especially in terms of the three items under the “social environment” category and the two items under the “sociocultural environment at worksite” category.
Conclusion: The importance of “social environment” and “socio-cultural environment at worksite” is generally not ranked as highly as that of other environmental factors among the surveyed PHNs. Such findings were especially salient among respondents who had support opportunities beyond health guidance compared with those who had fewer such opportunities.
