Content area
Abstract
Nurses providing care in a variety of settings, including parish nurses practicing in faith communities, need to be prepared with current information and a sense of confident capability to intervene in areas of health promotion and disease prevention. With the problems of obesity and overweight children and adults reaching epidemic proportions, health professionals need to increase efforts to change behavior and promote nutritional health. At present there is no published literature on parish nurse self-efficacy related to knowledge and ability to counsel in this area of concern.
Quasi-experimental pre-test post-test design with comparison group examined the effect of an educational intervention on the perceived self-efficacy of parish nurses. Development of the educational intervention was guided by self-efficacy theory, the parish nurse's role as faith and health integrator, and nutritional health promotion and disease prevention resources available for use in the congregational setting with individuals and groups across the lifespan. The study also examined the relationships of selected demographic variables and parish nurses' perceived self-efficacy.
The dependent variable, perceived self-efficacy, was measured by subscales and sub-subscales of the Health Promotion Counseling Self-Efficacy Scale (HPCSE). The HPCSE was developed in 1995 by researchers Tresolini, Saluja, and Stritter. Scores on the sub-subscales of nutrition knowledge self-efficacy and counseling self-efficacy were used to examine the effect of the intervention. Scores on the subscales of total knowledge and total counseling self-efficacy were used to examine the relationships of selected demographic variables. The Cronbach's alpha internal consistency reliabilities ranged from .84 to .96, an acceptable level of internal consistency reliability for the subscales and sub-subscales used in the study.
A convenience sample pf parish nurses from networks/coalitions located in eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and northern Delaware were randomly assigned to the experimental (n = 55) and control groups (n = 37). Statistical analysis included the t-test for independent samples, Pearson product moment correlation coefficients, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Analysis of total knowledge and total counseling self-efficacy scores indicated the groups did not differ significantly on pre-test. The t-distribution analysis revealed a significant difference between the post-test scores for the experimental and control groups. There were significant increases in nutrition knowledge self-efficacy (t = 2.45, p = .016) and nutrition counseling self-efficacy (t = 2.65, p = .010) in the experimental group which received the nutrition educational intervention. There were no significant relationships found between parish nurses' perceived post-test knowledge and counseling self-efficacy and the variables of age, years of parish nurse experience, highest nursing educational preparation, and current practice positions.
Implications for nursing include the need to encourage coordinators and/or leadership of parish nurse coalitions/networks to provide educational interventions that prepare parish nurses with current information and a sense of confident capability, or self-efficacy in health promotion and disease prevention. The faith community provides an important access point for community-oriented nursing practice focused on population health at a time when issues such as obesity and overweight are affecting large numbers of Americans. The nutrition educational intervention was developed with self-efficacy theory as a framework and resulted in increased perceived self-efficacy among parish nurses. Parish nurses come to this specialty practice with a variety of nursing educational preparation. This type of educational intervention provides a model to be used in preparing future educational programs in other aspects of health promotion and disease prevention. Future research into the study parish nurses' perceived self-efficacy leading to behavior change is recommended, looking at a variety of health promotion and disease prevention issues such as exercise and smoking, as well as investigating if increased perceived self-efficacy persists beyond this initial post-test timeframe and results in positive outcomes in the faith community.
