The authors of the selected article focus on determining whether a multi-strategy program developed on the basis of Pender’s Health Promotion Theory is efficient for preventing loneliness by enhancing social relations. As a research area, the authors have decided to pay special attention to the elderly women enrolled in Gonabad urban Health Centers (Alaviani, Khosravan, Alami. & Moshki, 2015). The idea behind this research was to identify whether Pender’s health promotion nursing theory is practically applicable to shaping desired behaviors and improving them if necessary. In fact, the abovementioned model serves as the theoretical framework for conducting the research.
In order to find a relevant answer to the central research question, the authors formed a sample of 150 elderly women who were referred to urban health centers. All of them suffered from medium loneliness. To collect the needed data, the authors asked the respondents to fill in two questionnaires – Russel’s UCLA loneliness questionnaire and one based on Pender’s model. The respondents were asked to complete them before and after the intervention. As for the intervention, it was a set of lectures, addressing major aspects of loneliness and ways to combat this problem. There were two groups of respondents – a control group and an interventional group. Once all necessary information was collected, the researchers analyzed it using SPSS tools and descriptive statistics (Alaviani et al., 2015).
Even though the authors did not test any hypotheses, they assumed that the model could be used by nurses to amend behaviors and make them socially acceptable. This statement was mentioned in the previous research on the topic, and numerous other authors came to this conclusion (Alaviani et al., 2015). So, the belief in the effectiveness of Pender’s Health Promotion Model for amending behaviors was the central argument of the paper. It was closely connected to the authors’ belief that loneliness was not associated with living alone. Instead, it derived from damaged or limited social interactions. That is why it is a common condition among elderly people.
As the authors carried out their interventional experiment and analyzed the collected data, they came to the conclusion that the intervention (explaining the basics of social interactions and efficient interpersonal relations) was helpful for diminishing the feeling of loneliness and improving the scores of health promotion model related to loneliness. To answer the research questions, they compared results obtained from respondents belonging to two different groups. For instance, the score of social isolation (a benefit of loneliness) decreased, while the score of increasing social activities (fighting loneliness) increased among those who underwent interventions. Furthermore, social self-efficacy of those belonging to the interventional group and their desire to seek social support improved (Alaviani et al., 2015).
As a result, the authors supported the initial statement, concluding that the Health Promotion Model developed by Pender can become a valuable foundation for developing effective interventions necessary for changing socially unacceptable behaviors. Except for the modifications in behaviors, the same model is applicable to designing interventions for estimating and improving social relations. Therefore, the authors confirmed the common belief that this approach is helpful for improving different deviant behaviors in the mental-social domain if used by community nurses. In particular, because most nurses believe that the use of this model is inevitable in addressing the mental-social situation, the authors proved that the influence of the model is positive, as it leads to better health outcomes (Alaviani et al., 2015).
Reference
Alaviani, M., Khosravan, S., Alami. A., & Moshki, M. (2015). The effect of a multi-strategy program on developing social behaviors based on Pender’s health promotion model to prevent loneliness of old women referred to Gonabad urban Health Centers. International Journal of Community-Based Nursing Midwifery, 3(2), 132-140.