Advocacy Through Legislation: Role of Nurses in Advancing Caregiver's Wellbeing
Nurses often become motivated to change aspects within the larger health care system based on their real-world experience. As such, many nurses take on an advocacy role to influence a change in regulations, policies, and laws that govern the larger health care system.
For this assignment, identify a problem or concern in your state, community, or organization that has the capacity for advocacy through legislation. Research the issue and use the "Advocacy Through Legislation" template to complete this assignment.
You are required to cite a minimum of three sources to complete this assignment. Sources must be published within the last 5 years, appropriate for the assignment criteria, and relevant to nursing practice.
While APA style is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and documentation of sources should be presented using APA formatting guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. A link to the LopesWrite technical support articles is located in Class Resources if you need assistance.
Problem There are three core aspects that shape the current paper. The first is that is that for nearly a decade, the United States has been facing a critical shortage in nurses. Health scholars like Haddad (2022) have attributed the shortage to factors like growing number of aging populations, lack of current resources to train nurses, high industry turnover, and inequitable workforce distribution. The second aspect is that the number of caregivers, primarily family members and friends, is reducing. According to the CDC (CDC, 2022), informal or unpaid caregivers are the backbone of long-term care provided within households. According to Tough, Brinkhof, and Fekete (2020) the significant role played by caregivers on the health system cannot be underestimated and their decline should be addressed so that more people are encouraged to take up these roles.
However, the third aspect is that informal caregivers do not get compensation for their role, yet the role profoundly impacts their physical and mental state. In other words, the current conditions discourage people from taking up caregiving roles because they must pursue other things in life. Based on these three aspects, there is a need for the involvement of nurses in caregiving promotion and education. The issue, therefore, is that caregivers are reducing, and nurses are accumulating extra loads of work. Consequently, it is imperative that legislation supporting and protecting the health and safety of informal caregivers, primarily where serious socioeconomic deficiencies are involved, should be implemented to strengthen the public health system. Idea for Addressing Solution Informal caregivers often go unnoticed. It is easy to forget that even though they are doing it out of love or a sense of moral responsibility, their lives are also changed by the caregiver's burden. Caregiver burden refers to the strain or load borne by a person who cares for a disabled, elderly, or chronically ill family member, relative, or friend. This burden is multidimensional because it affects all aspects of life, including physical, psychological, emotional, financial, social, and privacy factors. But since they are informal, their predicaments are often overlooked despite their immense contribution to the health sector. Recent estimates indicate the value of service provided by informal caregivers. In Australia, for instance (Carers_Australia, 2021), it was estimated that up to 2.8 million people provided informal care totaling 2.2 billion houses of care in 2020.
Addressing this issue will require legislation that officially recognizes caregiving as a demanding role in which external interventions can enhance outcomes. Ideally, there should be a process through which informal caregivers can be recognized from the onset, like in a family with a member with disability, elderly, injured, or chronically ill person. Such identification of a caregiver should begin by examining the socioeconomic background so that people who take on cumbersome roles are officially recognized but not at the same time compelled by the law to act as health officials on a payroll. Rather, such legislation should empower caregivers with education and support. The legislation recognizes that the caregiving services are provided out of love or perceived moral responsibility while facing challenges that individual caregivers need support. Research the Issue Evidence 1 Research outcomes have indicated that recognizing and supporting caregivers improves health outcomes. In their study, Leykum et al. (2022) found that understanding the social determinants of health in the context of caregivers is important because it informs the kind of support they need. Where caregivers are supported, the authors do not realize positive health outcomes for both the caregiver and the patient. Evidence 2 Similarly, Chase, Russell, and Rice (2019) found that caregivers are responsive to learning strategies to manage older adults' PF needs and voiced their ideas on improving family-focused training and support. Therefore, caregivers are not supporting the health system but are also sources of information to improve the health system. Ultimately, the authors argue that caregivers' lack of support and training Evidence 3 Today, in the US, the Lifespan Respite Care Programs are nationally funded coordinated systems of accessible, community-based respite care for caregivers. Since 2009, the programs have received $2.5 m annually (UNECE, 2019). These funds have been used to develop respite infrastructure to meet the respite needs of caregivers and family needs...