Screening and Counselling Clinic Evaluation Project

Abstract

If health care costs are to be contained, it is essential to focus on the promotion of health. Preventive health services receive a disproportionately small part of the health care budget. For every dollar spent on illness, less than five cents goes toward health promotion and disease prevention (Rachlis & Kush-ner, 1989). In A New Perspective on The Health of Canadians (Lalonde, 1974), health promotion was one of the priority strategies outlined, yet health promotion has met with more talk than action. Overwhelmingly, the so-called health care budget has been devoted to illness care. At a recent conference on "Healthy Public Policy", it was stressed that health promotion and disease prevention measures may contribute more to the improvement in health status than does medical care and therapeutics and that prevention programs need to be evaluated for program effectiveness (Carlson, 1985). Since 1979 senior nursing students have been acquiring clinical experience in a screening clinic for adults, which is conducted under the auspices of the Faculty of Nursing at the University of New Brunswick. It seemed appropriate to evaluate the effectiveness of the clinic in terms of its impact on the health behaviour of participants. Literature Review The community health nurse traditionally has functioned in primary health care. This health care, which is described as essential health care made universally accessible to individuals and families in the community, by means acceptable to them, through their full participation and at a cost the community and country can afford, reflects the nurse's role (WHO, 1978). It is the first level of contact of individuals, the family and the community with the health system. The expanded role of the nurse as the agent of primary care in helping people reach the goal of "Health for All" has been advocated (Mahler, 1978).