Paper
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Collaborating to Improve Health in the Remote Villages of Central Vietnam
Jill B. Derstine, EdD, RN, FAAN, Nursing, Temple University College of Health Professions, Philadelphia, PA, USA, Pamela Hoyt, RN, Nursing, Dreyfus Health Foundation of the Rogosin Institute, New York, NY, USA, and Kathleen Black, DNSc, RN, Nursing, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
| Learning Objective #1: List two strategies for successful collaboration to effect change in nursing education on a global basis. |
| Learning Objective #2: State one method used to teach nursing students in a developing country how to create appropriate nursing interventions for health problems in their community. |
This paper will describe a collaborative project conducted by Temple University, The Dreyfus Health Foundation, Health Volunteers Overseas, and the Department of Nursing at The University of Hue in Hue, Vietnam. In 2004, these organizations launched the first Problem Solving for Better Health Nursing (PSBHN) workshop in Vietnam, targeting third year nursing students in their community health course. The purpose of the project was three-fold: to enhance the teaching skills of nursing faculty, to improve the problem solving skills of student nurses and enhance their community health course experience, and to improve the health and well-being of the rural community. Using the PSBHN model, thirty eight students completed community assessments (in this case, the communes of Nam Dong province), defined community problems, created action plans, carried out interventions, and evaluated their projects with the aid of seed funding from the Dreyfus Health Foundation. Two faculty from Temple University, trained in the PSBH model, facilitated the workshops. Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO) provided travel and in-country support for the facilitators. Examples of problems generated by the nursing students included malnutrition of children under five years, high incidence of intestinal parasites among children in the Nam Dong community, lack of dental hygiene among primary school age children, and poor sanitation and waste disposal. Two year data will be discussed including perceived changes in faculty, student learning, and the impact of the students’ interventions among the community members in Nam Dong province. The authors conducted a final evaluation of the project in a site visit in November 2006 and found that ten projects were completed successfully and observed five projects in action. Because of the positive results, the problem solving model has been integrated into the community health course work for third level nursing students.