I Glossary

American Nurses Association (ANA): A national organization that fosters high standards of professional nursing practice with a focus on improving quality health care for all.^[1] (Chapter 1.3)

Andragogy: The unique needs of adult learning. (Chapter 1.4)

Client: An individual, family, or group, which includes significant others and populations.^[2] (Chapter 1.3)

Coping: Cognitive and behavioral efforts made to master, tolerate, or reduce external and internal demands and conflicts. (Chapter 1.3)

Coping strategies: Actions or thought processes used to adapt to a stressful or unpleasant situation and/or modify one’s reaction to such a situation. (Chapter 1.3)

Cultural humility: The humble and respectful attitude toward all individuals that requires a commitment by the nurse to provide dignity, respect, and grace to people regardless of origin, race, sexual preference, background, or socioeconomic status.^[3] (Chapter 1.3)

Disease prevention: Includes primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. (Chapter 1.3)

Domains of learning: Three areas of learning, including cognitive (“thinking”), affective (“feeling”), and psychomotor (“doing.”) (Chapter 1.4)

Health inequities: Avoidable differences in health status seen within and between communities.^[4] (Chapter 1.2)

Health literacy: The degree to which individuals have the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions and actions for themselves and others.^[5] (Chapter 1.2, Chapter 1.3)

Health care consumers: Clients, persons, families, groups, communities, or populations who are the focus of the nurse’s attention. (Chapter 1.3)

Health promotion: The process for enabling people to increase control over and improve their own health. (Chapter 1.2)

Healthy lifestyles: Lifestyle choices to reduce the risk of disease and lower mortality. (Chapter 1.3)

Learning: The acquisition of new knowledge, attitudes, or skills. (Chapter 1.1)

Learning styles:  Visual, auditory, read/write, and kinesthetic methods of learning that are preferred by a specific learner. Learners typically use more than one style of learning.^[6]

Nurse Practice Act (NPA): State regulations for nursing practice that also define the scope of nursing practice in that state. (Chapter 1.3)

Primary prevention: Health promotion activities that focus on actions to avoid disease, such as providing information on medical and mental health risks and measures to decrease them, good nutrition, oral and dental health, and immunizations. (Chapter 1.2)

Readiness to learn: A learner’s ability to acquire knowledge and initiate behavior change that leads to effective and successful outcomes. (Chapter 1.5)

Resiliency: The ability to effectively cope with adversity. (Chapter 1.3)

Secondary prevention: Health promotion activities that focus on early detection of disease to improve positive health outcomes, such as evidence-based screening programs for early detection of diseases. (Chapter 1.2)

Self-care: The ability to care for oneself through awareness, self-control, and self-reliance to achieve, maintain, or promote optimal health and well-being.^[7] (Chapter 1.3)

Self-management: The “day-to-day management of chronic conditions by individuals over the course of an illness as active participants in their own care, including problem-solving, decision-making, resource utilization, partnerships with health care providers, and taking action.”^[8] (Chapter 1.3)

Social determinants of health (SDOH): Conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age that have a major impact on people’s health, well-being, and quality of life. (Chapter 1.2)

Teaching: The process of implementing a variety of methods to convey information with the intention of producing learning. (Chapter 1.1)

Tertiary prevention: Helping clients reduce the severity of disease and/or altered functioning, also referred to as “rehabilitation.”^[9] (Chapter 1.2)

The Joint Commission (TJC): A federal agency that sets standards for health care agencies with a focus on “client safety and quality improvement.”^[10] (Chapter 1.1)

Transtheoretical model (TTM): A commonly used framework used to help clients change behaviors and make healthier lifestyle choices based on the following stages: Precontemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, and Maintenance. (Chapter 1.5)