Wellness Promotion Services include clinical preventive measures, education and the promotion of healthy life styles based on the best available evidence assist in keeping people healthy and safe. Yet, research shows that even the most effective and accepted wellness promotion services are not delivered regularly in the primary health care setting. For example, although pneumococcal disease caused a lot of disabilities, only a small percentage of persons aged 65 and older receive a pneumococcal vaccine. Life style changes such healthy nutrition; more physical activity can reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
Barriers to making wellness promotion services a routine part of health care exist among both clinicians and clients, and within the clinical setting. Clinicians report they do not have sufficient time to provide these services because most of their time is spent responding to patients’ need for treatment. Clinicians also cite competing demands, uncertainty about conflicting recommendations, and lack of training in wellness promotion as barriers to providing these services. Patients often do not ask their health care providers about wellness promotion services because they are unaware of the benefits or their availability; are not motivated to seek them out; are deterred by what they perceive as the inconvenience and expense of preventive care (which their insurance/health plans may not routinely cover); and are worried about the discomfort they think such care may entail such as mammography. In the clinical setting, barriers to providing wellness promotion services include inadequate reimbursement for these services, patient mobility, and the lack of a system for integrating wellness promotion services into regular patient care system.
There is increasing evidence that many of these barriers can be overcome through a formal system for delivering wellness promotion services . This Wellness Promotion Guide describes easy-to-follow, logical steps to take you through the process. It is designed as a tool to assist various care providers—physicians, nurses, health educators, and allied health professionals— to integrate wellness promotion into daily practice.
The guidelines have been benefited from discussion with the following scientific groups – Child Health, Women Health, Geriatric, Mental Health, Osteoporosis, Breast Cancer and Public Health.
Dr Farouq Al-Zurba
Consultant, Family Medicine
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