Methods: Faculty are incorporating innovative strategies into their educational pedagogy to improve the health of nursing students and promote wellness throughout the nursing profession. Various methods of integrating wellness into curricula include: a faculty wellness toolkit; the concept of “lecturcizing;” using national disease prevention initiatives, such as Healthy People 2020 and Million Hearts, as teaching tools and a means of improving student wellness; and incorporating a variety of assignments and projects related to wellness into nursing courses. An exemplar of an optional, multi-dimensional wellness program that was integrated into a large online RN-BSN course will be discussed. Students were asked to identify a wellness goal at the beginning of the semester. Each week, students were given a short wellness activity to complete. Examples of wellness activities were such things as guided imagery, dancing videos, and trying a new healthy recipe. At the end of each week, students were asked to submit a document stating they completed the wellness activity and how they were progressing with their wellness goal. Student participation rates were tracked and a follow-up survey was administered.
Results: Participation rates were high with 61% completing all wellness activities and only 4% choosing not to engage in any wellness activities. Eighty percent of students who participated in the wellness activities reported either achieving their wellness goal or were close to achieving their wellness goal. Ninety-five percent of students wished to continue wellness activities in the course.
Conclusion: Emphasizing the health of the provider, not just the patient, needs to start during entry into the profession with nursing education. Nurses need to demonstrate leadership by practicing and advocating for health promotion, disease prevention and population health.