Nursing (NURS) 522
NP: Women and Men's Health
Delivery Mode: Paced/home-study online
Credits: 3
Area of Study: Applied Studies
Prerequisite: 519, 521, and 518 and 614, or 520.
Faculty: Faculty of Health Disciplines
Introduction
In NURS 522 Nurse Practitioner: Women and Men's Health, students will study these foundational components of nurse practitioner practice:
- the primary health care principle of Appropriate Technology
- the community development principle of Connective Processes, and
- the Nurse Practitioner Competency of Inclusiveness, Cultural Safety and Diversity.
Students learn to provide primary health care, including clinical services, to women, men, and sexual minorities, including low-risk prenatal and postpartum care. The students will learn how to provide wellness counseling for healthy women and men, management of acute and chronic gender-specific conditions, and referral of conditions requiring management by other health professionals or resources. Health promotion and illness prevention is emphasized. Students examine trends and issues in the health of men and women and explore evidence-based health care resources. And finally, you will continue your clinical practicum and community assessment.
Although this course encompasses theory in both women's and men's health, the practicum for NURS 522 will focus on women's health and perinatal care. Opportunities to practice men's health care is assimilated into NURS 526 NP: Adults. Students complete a minimum of 140 hours of clinical practice and are required to have a successful clinical evaluation in order to achieve a passing grade; additional hours over and above 140 may be required in order to achieve course objectives. By the end of your NURS 522 practicum you must have logged a minimum of 90 hours in providing health care to women, the remaining 50 hours may be obtained in care of clients in other life stages. By the end of NURS 530 you must have logged a total of at least 140 hours of clinical practice in the care of female clients.
Course Goals
After completing this course, students should be able to:
- critically analyze the primary health care principle of appropriate technology, the community development principles of connective processes and NP competency of cultural safety and inclusion, and discuss how these influence the health of clients;
- explore ethnicity, migration, and socio-economic status in the context of the determinants of health and health outcomes;
- implement strategies to enhance the determinants of health;
- implement strategies to foster connections with individual clients and communities;
- implement strategies to promote culturally sensitive and inclusive health care to populations and individuals;
- explore one's own biases for special populations: poverty, obesity, smoking, alternative lifestyles, drug use;
- explore issues like disability in pregnancy, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered health, fatherhood, pregnancy loss, circumcision and breastfeeding with an emphasis on social context, diversity, and cultural relevance;
- identify and utilize current recommendations for preventative screening for pregnant women;
- provide evidence-based clinical services to well women (including pregnant women) and to those men and women presenting with gender-specific acute and chronic health concerns, at a level appropriate to a beginning practitioner, including:
- health history and physical examination
- clinical decision-making
- ordering of laboratory and diagnostic tests
- prescription of medications
- therapeutic communication
- administering treatments or procedures
- collaborative relationships;
- documentation of clinical data, diagnoses, collaborations, communications and treatments, monitoring and follow-up;
- refer men and women with health concerns that exceed the scope of practice of a beginning practitioner to other health professionals or appropriate resources;
- articulate, promote and practice evidence-based primary, secondary and tertiary health promotion and illness prevention strategies along the health-illness continuum;
- demonstrate integration of medical and nursing management of health concerns of women;
- recognize obstetrical emergencies and initiate appropriate interventions;
- synthesize community assessment data to develop inferences about:
- accessibility of determinants of health to a community's members
- relationships between culture and health status of a community's members
- community vulnerabilities and strengths in relation to the health of women, men and sexual minorities;
- the status of a community's health in relation to women, men, and sexual minorities;
- discuss issues and trends that affect the health of women, men and sexual minorities;
- utilize clinical practice guidelines and review Internet-based sources of information about evidence-based health care for women, men and sexual minorities;
- adhere to federal and provincial/territorial legislation, policies and standards related to privacy, documentation and information management in the primary care setting and in their advanced nursing practice; and
- explore the legal, professional and ethical issues in the use of technology including electronic health records, diagnostic tools and mobile devices.
Course Materials
NURS 522 comprises online, print-based and mobile electronic course materials.
Online Materials
- Introduction: Provides essential information about the course materials, the design of the course, and the procedures you should follow to complete the course successfully
- Schedule: Outlines the timing of course activities
- Units: Contains the 7 units that make up the course
- Assessment: Outlines the assignments/evaluation procedures of the course
- Reference: Listing of required readings, mobile resources, and websites included in the units
- Clinical Practicum: Explains how to complete the clinical practicum requirements of the course
- Community Health Component: Explains how to complete the community assessment requirements of the course
Textbooks
The textbooks listed below are used in this course.
Youngkin, E.Q., Davis, M.S., Schadewald, D.M., Juve, C. (Eds.). (2013). Women's Health: A Primary Care Clinical Guide, 4th ed. New York: Springer, e-book.
Other Materials
Textbooks, mobile resources, and readings from other Advanced Nursing Practice courses will be used as appropriate.
Course Structure
In this course, you will access health-related websites worldwide. You will also participate in email and computer conferencing with other students. Students are expected to connect to an Internet Service Provider at their own expense.
Technical Requirements
Computer System
In order to successfully complete this course, you must own or have ready access to certain computer hardware and software programs. For complete and up-to-date information on the minimum computer requirements required to complete the graduate nursing courses, visit the Centre for Nursing and Health Studies technical site.
Course Outline
NURS 522 consists of the following 7 units:
Unit 1: Clinical Practicum and Community Assessment: Processes and Requirements
Unit 1 provides an overview of the processes and requirements of the clinical practicum and community assessment of NURS 522. As well, the unit poses questions for you to consider during your clinical practicum and community assessment, about the health status of women and the influence of accessibility and connective processes on health status.
Unit 2: Primary Health Care and Nurse Practitioners: Accessibility
NURS 522 focuses on the primary health care principle of accessibility. In this unit, students examine factors that influence accessibility, particularly the factors of gender and culture. Students consider how accessibility and culture can affect the care of clients, particularly women, both as individuals and as a community. Students also examine the community assessment completed to date and consider the adequacy of the cultural data that has been collected thus far.
Unit 3: Community Development and Nurse Practitioners: Connective Processes
In this unit, students explore the community development principle connective processes, examine a community for evidence of connective processes, and evaluate personal effectiveness in connecting with individuals and communities.
Unit 4: Well Women
In this unit, students focus on the delivery of extended health services to well women, including pregnant women. Students study the Functional Health Patterns and consider health promotion/illness prevention opportunities for adult women.
Unit 5: Women with Acute Presentations
In this unit, students study common acute presentations of women along with therapeutic interventions. The unit also includes content related to an acute presentation of pregnancy: management of labour and delivery and immediate newborn care. The course does not prepare students to competently attend a labour and delivery and students are not expected to attend a labour and delivery in the clinical practicum of the course. The content is included to prepare students to provide health teaching to clients related to the labour and delivery experience.
Unit 6: Women with Chronic Presentations
In Unit 6, students learn about chronic conditions that may present in women. Students also learn appropriate health monitoring and health teaching with pregnant women with pre-existing chronic illnesses. In most cases, a woman who presents for pregnancy testing with a pre-existing chronic illness will be referred to a physician who will become her primary caregiver.
Unit 7: Issues, Trends and Research in Women's Health
In the last unit of NURS 522 you review issues and trends that have been presented in the course, consider issues that arise from women's growth and development, and draw conclusions about trends that may influence the health care provided to women in your community. The unit closes with an opportunity to learn about current women's health research projects and generate research questions based on the content of the course.
Assessment Structure
The assessment structure for NURS 522 is based on the following course activities, with the percentage weighting of each activity as indicated. The final grade for the course is a composite mark based on performance on these course activities.
Conference Participation | 20% |
Assignment 1 Community Health Development Record | 10% |
Assignment 2 Case Study | 25% |
Midterm Examination | 20% |
Final Examination | 25% |
Total | 100% |
ALSO: Clinical Practicum | Pass/Fail |
In order to pass NURS 522, you must achieve a minimum mark of 60% on each element of the assessment structure (conference participation, written assignments, and examination). That is, you must achieve a minimum mark of 60% (12/20) on conference participation, a minimum average mark of 60% (30/50) on the written assignments, and a minimum mark of 60% (18/30) on the examination.
In addition to these activities, you must receive a satisfactory evaluation of the clinical practicum.
If the minimum mark is not achieved on any element of the assessment structure (conference participation, written assignments, examination or clinical practicum), then a failing grade will be assigned for NURS 522. If the student re-registers in NURS 522, then all elements of the course must be repeated (conference participation, written assignments, examination and clinical practicum).
Conference Participation (20%)
Feedback regarding conference participation will be ongoing. Quality of input (not quantity) is the goal. Feedback will focus on the student's ability to provide organized and original contributions that reflect analysis and synthesis of the material presented.
Participation CriteriaParticipation will be measured against the following criteria:
- Complete online contributions during the unit conference timeframe.
- Respond to online discussions at least twice each week.
- Contribute original thoughts or ideas to online discussions.
- Cite relevant resources to validate points made.
- Demonstrate openness to divergent points of view.
- Be respectful of the perceptions of others.
- Integrate material from previous units to formulate ideas and generate dialogue.
- Present responses that follow the rules of grammar and spelling in the online contributions.
Assignment 1: Community Health Development Record (10%)
Assignment 1 consists of completing the NURS 522 Community Health Development Record documenting an ongoing community assessment.
Assignment 2: Case Study (25%)
In Assignment 2, students analyze a case study that presents a health concern of a female client appropriate for a nurse practitioner to assess, treat, and follow up.
Midterm Examination (20%)
The midterm examination consists of multiple choice questions.
Final Examination (25%)
The final examination consists of multiple choice questions and tests content of the entire course.
Athabasca University reserves the right to amend course outlines occasionally and without notice. Courses offered by other delivery methods may vary from their individualized-study counterparts.
View previous syllabus