Methods: Various methods will be presented in this symposium, including: 1) an evidence review of the current state of population health, including the health of the nursing profession; 2) the incorporation of innovative strategies into 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; 3) description of baseline data from a student wellness on-boarding study; and 4) the methods utilized in the Million Hearts Building Healthy Academic Communities (BHAC) and Ohio State challenge programs.
Results:
According to the latest statistics, there over 3 million practicing Registered Nurses (including Advanced Practice Registered Nurses) in the U.S., which represents the largest sector of the health professions. Too often nurses fail to adequately care for themselves. As a result of not engaging in healthy lifestyle behaviors, nurses have higher rates of diabetes, hypertension, obesity and depression than physicians. Not being in optimal health contributes to high rates of burnout, early retirement, and a plethora of chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease, depression, obesity, and musculoskeletal conditions. For the students enrolled in a RN-BSN course where wellness and self-care and discussed and promoted, 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. Results from the Million Hearts program challenge saw high level of stress significantly correlated with race (p=.02), a diagnoses of at least one chronic condition (p<.0001), a BMI of 25-29.9 (p=.04), and those who ate 0-1 servings of fruit/vegetables per day (p=.0002). High level of stress was significantly correlated with being a smoker (p=.05), participants diagnosed with at least one chronic condition (p<.001), and a BMI of over 30 (p=.05).
Lastly, in regards to the health sciences graduate student wellness on-boarding study, overall, the lower healthy lifestyle beliefs were significantly associated with higher depression (r =-0.37, P < 0.001), higher anxiety (r = -0.36, P < 0.001), and higher stress (r = -0.36, P < 0.001). Significant negative correlations also existed between healthy lifestyle behaviors and depression (r = -0.36, P < 0.001), healthy lifestyle behaviors and anxiety (r = -0.30, P < 0.001), and healthy lifestyle behaviors and stress
(r = -0.22, P = 0.02). Positive and significant correlations existed between healthy lifestyle behaviors and healthy lifestyle beliefs (r=0.52, P < 0.001). Additionally, depression, anxiety, and stress are highly correlated with each other (pair-wise correlation coefficients of 0.60-0.81).
Conclusion:
Addressing the health and wellness of students, faculty and staff in academic institutions, as well as the broader culture and environment, is a critical step in improving population health outcomes. As it relates to the field of nursing, emphasizing the health of the provider, not just the patient, needs to start during entry into the profession with nursing education. In addition, national health initiatives, outlined in this presentation, such as Million Hearts, and local programs, such as a student wellness on-boarding intervention, can be successful methods for educating and encouraging populations to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors.