Roles and Functions of a Nurse

Nurse as an educator Being n educator or teacher is an important health information for many adults clients in the United States. Client and families have the right to health education in order to make informed decisions about their health. The nurse is in position to promote healthy lifestyles through the application of health knowledge, the change process, learning theories, and the nursing and teaching process when teaching clients and their families. Nurse assumes a number of roles when they provide care to clients. Nurses pften carry out these roles concurrently, not exclusively of one another.

Caregiver The caregiver role has traditionally included those activities that assist the client physically and psychologically while preserving the clients dignity. The required nursing actions may involve full care for the completely dependent client, partial care for the partially dependent client, and supportive-educative care to assist clients in attaining their highest possible level of health and wellness.

Communicator Nurses communicate with the client, support persons, other health professionals, and people in the community. In the role of communicator, nurses identify client problems and then communicate these verbally or in writing to other members of the health team. The nurse must be able to communicate clearly and accurately in order for a clients health care needs to be met.

Teacher As a teacher the nurse helps clients learn about their health and the health care procedures they need to perfrom to restore or maintain their health. The nurses assesses the clients learning needs and readiness to learn, sets specific learning goals in conjunction with the client, enacts teaching strategies, and measures learning.

Client Advocate A client advocate acts to protect the client. In this role the nurse may represent the clients needs and wishes to other health professionals, such as relaying the clients wishes for information to the physician. They also assist clints in exercising their rights and help them speak up for themselves.

Counselor Counselling is the process of helping a client to recognize and cope with stressfull psychologic or social problems, to develop improved interpersonal relationships, and to promote personal growth. It involves providing emotional, intellectual, and psychologic support. The nurse counsels primarily healthy individuals with normal adjustments difficulties and focuses on helping the person develop new attitudes, feelings, and behaviors by encouraging the client to look at alternative behaviors, recognize the choices and develop a sense of control.

Change agent When assisting clients to manage behaviors to make modifications the role of nurse acts as a change agent. Nurse also often act to manage changes in a system, such as clinical care, if it is not helping a client return to health. Nurse are continually dealing with change in the health care system.

Leader A leader influences others to work together to accomplish a specific goal. The leader role can be employed at different levels: individual client, family, group of clients, colleagues, or the community. Effective leadership is a learned process requiring an understanding of needs and goals that motivate people, the knowledge to apply the leadership skills, and the interpersonal skills to influence others.

Manager The nurse manages the nursing care of individuals, families, and communities. The nurse manager also delegates nursing activities to ancillary workers

and other nurses, and supervises and evaluates their performance. Managing requires knowledge about organizational structure and dynamics, authority and accountability, leadership, change theory, advocacy, delegation, and supervision and evaluation.