Project
Project Title
Obesity as a Risk Factor of Hypertension
Project Objectives
- Increase awareness about risk factors of elevated blood pressure;
- Provide education about efficient strategies for controlling weight;
- Inform about the consequences of obesity and hypertension;
- Teach self-assessment techniques and provide information about when to seek help;
- Provide information about local community resources that can help to address the problem of obesity and hypertension.
Target audience
The target audience of the project is older adults in the US that have internet access and Facebook accounts.
According to the report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, 2009), older adults have low health literacy. The central problem is that the senior population has lower cognitive abilities in comparison with younger people (CDC, 2009). Therefore, they may experience difficulties learning new information, and nurse practitioners (NPs) need to be attentive to the individual needs of older adults. First, the posts should be short and include only vital information to focus the attention of older adults (CDC, 2019). Second, the NPS should use simple language and avoid using any health of technology terms (CDC, 2009). Third, the posts should not assume that older adults have basic math skills to calculate the dosage of medications or probabilities (CDC, 2009). Even though not many older adults have Facebook accounts, an obesity intervention using this social platform will help older adults acquire information about the problem from one source. This is vital, as the senior population experiences problems obtaining health-related information from the Internet.
Social Media Platform
The chosen social media platform is Facebook.
The rationale behind the choice is that Facebook is the most widely used platform among older adults. According to research conducted by the Pew Research Center, 41% of the senior population in the US utilize Facebook (Bowers, 2018). Therefore, a project using Facebook will reach a wider audience.
Topics
- Causes of obesity. Example: Carbohydrate-rich diets and alcohol lead to increased weight gain and obesity (Jiang, Lu, Zong, Ruan, & Liu, 2016).
- Controlling weight. Example: Exercise and dietary change are associated with weight loss in older adults (Batsis et al., 2017).
- Obesity leads to hypertension. Example: Increased body weight may cause several conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and elevated blood pressure (Jiang et al., 2016).
- Self-assessment techniques. Example: BMI measurements and blood pressure monitors.
- Community resources for obesity and hypertension. Example: Community-based programs such as aerobics courses.
Discussion
The importance of collaborative care in primary care settings is difficult to overstate. Collaborative care can be divided into interprofessional collaboration and partnership between patients and care providers. According to Burm et al. (2019), interprofessional care helps to reduce medical error as the roles are distributed between professionals, and medical care workers can provide consultation in their field of expertise. As a result, patient outcomes are improved, and healthcare costs decrease, as there is less error that can cause hospital-acquired infections and mistreatment (Burm et al., 2019). At the same time, effective collaboration between professionals may improve interpersonal relationships, which leads to better job satisfaction.
Partnership with patients is also crucial, as it improves the provider-patient relationship and health outcomes. According to Baillie (2016), a partnership can be defined as a power balance in the relationship that promotes choice, equality, honesty, and participation. In nursing practice, partnership implies enabling patients together with their families, carers, and representatives to participate in decision-making about their health (Billie, 2016). Therefore, all care providers need to develop functional relationships with their patients.
In the family walk-in clinic, I had a chance to witness several cases of collaborative care that were executed with a high level of professionalism. An adolescent obese patient was brought to the clinic with wheezing. The patient also had elevated blood pressure, and his mother reported that the boy suffered from mild symptoms of depression. A collaborative team consisting of a physician, a nurse, a cardiologist, and a psychologist acted together to address all the symptoms demonstrated by the patient. I, as a nurse, had a chance to establish a partnership with the patient by showing interest in his case and asking demonstrating professionalism. As a result, the patient and his mother were delighted with the provided treatment.
Reflection
The central area of learning from the assignment was the needs of older adults. I deepened my knowledge of the literacy demands of the older population and searched for efficient ways to address those needs using technology. I was surprised to find out that more than 40% of older adults use Facebook. Before working on the assignment, I supposed that the senior population does not use social media very often. The statistics proved that social media platforms could be used efficiently by care providers to design and implement projects that elevate the level of health literacy among older adults.
References
Baillie, L. (2016). Working in partnership with patients and carers. Nursing Standard, 31(15), 42-45.
Batsis, J. A., Gill, L. E., Masutani, R. K., Adachi-Mejia, A. M., Blunt, H. B., Bagley, P. J., Lopez-Jimenez, F., & Bartels, S. J. (2017). Weight loss interventions in older adults with obesity: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials since 2005. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 65(2), 257–268.
Burm, S., Boese, K., Faden, L., DeLuca, S., Huda, N., Hibbert, K., & Goldszmidt, M. (2019). Recognizing the importance of informal communication events in improving collaborative care. BMJ Qual Saf, 28(4), 289-295.
Bowers, L. (2018). Facebook, YouTube most popular social media among older adults. McKnight’s Senior Living.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2009). Improving health literacy for older adults.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). CDC guide to writing for social media. Web.
Jiang, S. Z., Lu, W., Zong, X. F., Ruan, H. Y., & Liu, Y. (2016). Obesity and hypertension. Experimental and therapeutic medicine, 12(4), 2395-2399.