Analysis of health promotion strategies
The rate of smoking in the UK has been on the increase, with the youths and adolescents being highly affected. Smoking is associated with several health problems like mouth, lungs and bladder cancers. It is, therefore, important to have strategies in place which are aimed at reducing smoking of tobacco. It is also important to adopt safe smoking habits like indoor smoking so that the public cannot be affected by tobacco. The health problems associated with tobacco smoking depending on the smoking period, for example, those who start smoking early are at a greater risk. Some of the factors that predispose people into smoking include copying their smoking parents, peer pressure and watching some movies. However, if proper measures are taken, the rate, as well as complete stop of smoking, can be achieved. In most cases, the adolescents who may wish to stop smoking find difficulties because of addiction. Although a few people may be aware of the health effects of nicotine, the majority of the young people are not aware (Stellman, 2016). Tobacco smoking can help smokers to solve personal problems by relieving stress during emotional moments. This paper aims at determining the role of the government, nurses, and smokers in quitting tobacco smoking.
Therefore there is a need to carry out a health promotion activities considering the many health and social problems that result from smoking. Health promotion can include education of the people on ways of stopping tobacco smoking habits. It is, however, sad that tobacco smoking is common in some social classes than others (Siu, 2015). For instance, this habit is prevalent among the people with low income as opposed to the rich. This accounts for the largest number of deaths from tobacco-related negative health outcomes among the poor people. There are various models such as behavior change, social, empowerment, and education that can be used by various bodies to curb smoking habits. However, the integrity of each of the model should be researched to know whether they are effective in a certain context or not.
The government in has a big role to play in the cessation of tobacco smoking in England. Some of the steps include: reduction in second-hand exposure, raising the prices of tobacco to lower affordability, regulating the products associated with tobacco, prevention of tobacco promotion and increasing the awareness concerning the use of tobacco (Stellman, 2016). The local authorities in England are thus encouraged to give their suggestions that can help in the reduction of this habit. More efforts are targeted towards reducing smoking in pregnant women, adults and helping the existing smokers to cease. The government can use the social change models like smokers support programs which give various interventions to the smokers. For example, ‘Healthy people, healthy people’ is a tobacco smoking control plan where the government aims at achieving the complete cessation of tobacco smoking (Hopkinson et al., 2016). There will be effective enforcement of laws concerning which restricts some age limits for selling tobacco. In this case, the emphasis is laid to the restricted sale of tobacco to adolescents who might, in turn, acquire health problems that they live with even at old age (Hughes et al., 2014).
The Government
The governments defend the tobacco from the claims raised by tobacco industries so that no sales can take place in vendor machines. Moreover, there is no more display of tobacco in shops because this might hamper the efforts of smokers who are undergoing cessation programs to be tempted to resume smoking. Provide the necessary resources to support smokers who want to quit smoking (Rowell et al., 2014). The government also has placed a high tax on tobacco product so that this increases the prices and makes it unaffordable for many people. Other social models by the governments can be adopted to ensure that there is low to no use of tobacco in the society. Creation of social networks, empowerment programs, giving incentives, family systems society systems by the government and other stakeholders can also be effective in smoking cessation.
The nurses can be involved in offering education to smokers on how to and the benefits of quitting smoking habits. The smokers are more likely to trust the advice offered by the nurses as opposed to other advisors (Bialous et al., 2017). The clinicians can use the transtheoritical behavior change model to help the smokers quit smoking habits. This model consists of several stages such as the precontemplalation, contemplalation, preparation and maintenance stage. In the precontemplalation period, an individual has not smoked tobacco (Johnson et al., 2016). In contemplation stage, a person begins to learn smoking while the preparation stage involves the actual smoking. In the action stage, which can proceed for a long time, the person smokes on a daily basis and finally, in the maintenance stage, smoking becomes a habit. Nicotine, a chemical present in tobacco causes smoking dependence, which makes smokers to become addicted.
The goals that the nurses set for the smokers need to be realistic enough in the process of smoking quitting. Such achievable goals are likely to enable the smokers to work more in an attempt to cease smoking. In other case, the education model of counseling can be used to help patients to cease from smoking. Other education based models include the individual, group, telephone and internet based behavior counseling therapies. This can be through conducting of face to face counseling session with the smokers.
As a nurse, it is worth to praise and give positive remarks whenever a smoker achieves some goals towards the process of quitting smoking (Sarna et al., 2014). The nurse should ask the tobacco smokers to attend programs like counseling in the hospital relevant for them to stop smoking. If a patient who is a tobacco smoker had been admitted to the hospital, during discharge, the nurse needs to offer teachings on smoking quitting.
Role of a nurse
Smokers need to see a health specialist, say a registered nurse or a community health caregiver to advise them on the best methods of quitting smoking. In this case, one does not necessarily need to go to the hospital but they can use the toll-free telephone services and receive these services from their homes. Another way is for the smokers to enlist support from friends and family members (Grana et al., 2014). For example, a smoker can ask colleagues to remind them not to smoke tobacco, whenever they are tempted to smoke. Another way is to adopt a take-slow method whereby a smoker puts stop dates on a paper and works hard towards quitting. If this fails to work, then a smoker can prepare a plan which aims at cutting down the rate of tobacco smoking until they finally cease from smoking. Sometimes, the smokers might find difficulties of ceasing smoking due to addiction. However, they need to remain disciplines so that they can evade the suffering which comes down with tobacco smoking-related health problems.
Conclusion
In England and generally in the whole world, most health problems are linked to tobacco smoking. This, therefore, calls for various plans to promote health by helping smokers to quit this habit. These promotion plans need to be adopted by the government, the health caregivers and the community in general. The tobacco smokers who are receiving the promotion plans also need to put efforts in adopting the changes for the sake of their health. The government should take part in these strategies and provide resources and enable the environment to improve the health of the vulnerable groups.
References List
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