The Nursing Professional as a Health Coach

Abstract

Changing the health and self-management behavior of patients is a much more complex process, than previously thought. Nursing professionals often overestimate the extent to which patients have changed their health and improved their self-management behavior. Although nursing professionals are one of the main occupational groups for facilitating health education, they are not always well equipped with proper, evidence-based knowledge and skills to facilitate the patient’s self-management properly (Coster and Norman 2009). Nursing professionals wrongly assume that patients change their health and self-management-behavior, because improved self-management would have many benefits, including health benefits, and would increase well-being. A more scientific understanding has taken place within the nursing profession, that has led to a clearer positioning of nursing, both inside and outside the direct workforce and has resulted in diagnosis- and intervention-based nursing. Nursing professionals should send the care from the importance and the questioning of the patient himself and from the patient’s needs and experience of illness and health. The success of self-management interventions depends largely on the involvement and consent of health care providers (Jordan and Osbourne in: Coster and Norman 2009).