Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #115508

Atsuko Taguchi, RN, PHN, MS, Community Health Nursing, The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Medicine, Hongo 7-3-1, Bunkyoku Hongo, 7-3-1, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan, 81-3-5841-3597, ataguchi-tky@umin.ac.jp, Hiroshi Murayama, RN, PHN, BS, Department of Community Health Nursing, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan, Sachiyo Murashima, RN, PHN, PhD, Faculty of Medicine, dept of Community Health Nursing, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan, and Syuhei Ryu, Section of Community Health Nursing, Graduate School of Nursing, Tokyo Women's Medical University, 8-1 Kawada-tyo, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-8666, Japan.

Purpose: As one of the five actions means for health promotion in the community, "strengthen community action" is crucial to develop community by utilizing the community organizations. Public health nurses are expected to work with the members of the community organizations for health promotion. In Japan, we have health volunteer groups which have health promotion members. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify how public health nurses should work with the health promotion members activating their organization and urging the residents' participation. It is expected that the activity of the members would increase by developing their level of Self-Esteem. The purpose of this study is to examine the factor that influences Self-Esteem of health promotion members in order to consider the appropriate support that public health nurses should provide.

Methods: Self-administered questionnaires were mailed to 600 health promotion members who are working in a specified county of seven towns.

Results: A total of 514 questionnaires were returned, with an 85.7% recovery rate. The average score of Self-Esteem was 35.0 (SD6.3) points . The factors which show positive correlation with Self-Esteem score are "the period during which the members are conducting the activities," "the degree of activity satisfaction by the members," "the intimate climate of the organization" and "the degree of local resident's comprehension for the activities by the members."

Discussion: In order to enhance the level of Self-Esteem health promotion members, effective methods are shown as follows; (1)establishing organization that allows the members to continue their activities for a long period of time and to feel comfortable in doing their activities, (2)creating means by which makes the members can feel satisfactory and (3)making the residents understand the members' activities.

Learning Objectives:

• 3. Recognize the condition of the community organization for health promotion in Japan.
  6. List the factors related to develop Self-Esteem level of the community organizations
  9. What is the effective support of public health nursing for the community organizations.

Keywords: Health Promotion, Public Health Nursing

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.