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Research article
Barriers to nurses using their health advocacy role in nursing practice: A Ghanaian perspective
Luke Laari
Nurses Training College, Bawku
Corresponding Author
ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6450-7335
License:
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License. Read Full License
Background: While nursing is complex, transforming and multi-faceted profession, its focus of providing a safe and caring environment that promotes client health and wellbeing has remained unchanged. To do this, nurses need to use their professional roles and skills to advocate for such an environment to provide quality nursing care. However, this can be difficult, as health advocacy is a contextually intricate and complex component of nursing practice.
Speaking up to protect clients’ rights is a key ethical and moral mandate for nurses, with many remaining silent, even when presented with circumstances that require them to use their health advocacy role during their practice. The barriers to Ghanaian nurses using their role as health advocates for clients in the healthcare and communities’ settings are not well understood. Identifying and describing these barriers is important to inform contextually relevant strategies to empower nurses to use their health advocacy role in their daily nursing practice.
Methods: An inductive descriptive qualitative design, based on Strauss and Corbin Grounded Theory, was used to collect and analyse data on barriers that prevent nurses from practising their health advocacy role in Ghana. Twenty-four professional nurses were recruited from three regional hospitals in Ghana and interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. Data were analysed using Strauss and Corbin’s general guidelines and framework.
Results: Three categories emerged as barriers to the health advocacy role practice by nurses, these being intra-personal, inter-personal and structural barriers.
Conclusion: The barriers to nurses using their health advocacy role in practice are many and complex and have implications for nursing practice. Incorporating health advocacy into their curriculum may help address the barriers to nurses’ practice of health advocacy.
Keywords
Advocacy, Barriers, Health Advocacy, Grounded Theory, Nurses, nursing practice.
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This is a preprint. It has not completed peer review.
Research article
Barriers to nurses using their health advocacy role in nursing practice: A Ghanaian perspective
Luke Laari
Nurses Training College, Bawku
Corresponding Author
ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6450-7335
Badges
Prescreen
This manuscript passed our Prescreen assessment
Complete author information
Appropriate declaration statements
Potential risks to human health
Prescreen
History
CURRENT STATUS: Posted
Version 1
Posted 01 Jan, 2020
No community comments so far
Metrics
Comments: 0
PDF Downloads: ...
HTML Views: ...
Subject Areas
Nursing
License:
This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License. Read Full License
Background: While nursing is complex, transforming and multi-faceted profession, its focus of providing a safe and caring environment that promotes client health and wellbeing has remained unchanged. To do this, nurses need to use their professional roles and skills to advocate for such an environment to provide quality nursing care. However, this can be difficult, as health advocacy is a contextually intricate and complex component of nursing practice.
Speaking up to protect clients’ rights is a key ethical and moral mandate for nurses, with many remaining silent, even when presented with circumstances that require them to use their health advocacy role during their practice. The barriers to Ghanaian nurses using their role as health advocates for clients in the healthcare and communities’ settings are not well understood. Identifying and describing these barriers is important to inform contextually relevant strategies to empower nurses to use their health advocacy role in their daily nursing practice.
Methods: An inductive descriptive qualitative design, based on Strauss and Corbin Grounded Theory, was used to collect and analyse data on barriers that prevent nurses from practising their health advocacy role in Ghana. Twenty-four professional nurses were recruited from three regional hospitals in Ghana and interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. Data were analysed using Strauss and Corbin’s general guidelines and framework.
Results: Three categories emerged as barriers to the health advocacy role practice by nurses, these being intra-personal, inter-personal and structural barriers.
Conclusion: The barriers to nurses using their health advocacy role in practice are many and complex and have implications for nursing practice. Incorporating health advocacy into their curriculum may help address the barriers to nurses’ practice of health advocacy.