The Health Workshop: Design to Evaluate a Prototype in Primary Nursing Care

Abstract

RATIONALE FOR DEMONSTRATION AND EVALUATION The health status of Canadians remains relatively stable, in spite of massive illness detection and treatment measures and aggressive campaigns to provide "prudent" information about how people ought to live their lives. According to Health and Welfare Canada (1974) we have made marginal gains in the last two decades in altering the rates of dying, and sickness and disability. Health promotion is low in the scheme of things and, when considered, is fractionated as the preventive component of medical regimens: exercise is prescribed as part of the treatment plan to recover from heart attack, weight reduction is advised to ward off hypertension. Popular opinion conveys the idea that the attributes of healthy living are well known, that the line to health is simple and direct. Well-being can be achieved through compliance with the latest medical suggestion and adherence to an aesthetic style of life. If we eliminate cigarettes, reduce alcohol and calories, do moderate exercise, see the doctor regularly and drive with care, good health will follow. The Workshop ethos takes issue with this undue emphasis on correcting deficits in people's behaviour '. Workshop nursing seeks, instead, to recognize and built potential. Health is seen as a variable in its own right, quite distinct from that of illness and worthy of the largest part of attention in clinical and research endeavors. Health situations may entail ordinary