| Abstrakt: |
Access to health care services is a basic human right. There is, however, no universal definition of 'access,' yet in relation to basic health services it may be interpreted within the context of equitability of service. Despite an elusive concept, globally, various stakeholders such as nurses, attempt to improve access to health services to vulnerable groups by implementing innovations. The aim of this paper is to describe nurses' contribution to improving access to health services by vulnerable groups. Vulnerable group is a subpopulation which experiences variation in the prevalence, incidence, severity, and consequences of health conditions as well as amount of resources, and social influence (King & Wheeler, 2016). This puts them at higher risk exposure and as such, they often encounter barriers accessing health care services. There are also barriers with effective coverage, availability, and acceptability of health services. A conceptual framework was generated from the theoretical literature on access and applied to nursing literature. This was obtained through a systematic search of literature to examine nursing and access to health services. Data extracted, related to definition, operationalisation and exposition of the concept access as applied to nursing. Access can be conceptualised as having three main components: patient need, service utilisation, and availability of services. Nurses contribute in various ways to address access; the predominant approaches concern addressing patient need and increasing health care availability. Nurses contribute to the improvement of access to health services is often understated or supported by limited evidence. Increased focus on providing evidence of contribution to improving access is required by nurses. Evidence about nursing impact is important for the development and sustainability of nursing innovations. Nurses need to be clear about how they contribute to improvements in access to health services and to gather more evidence of this impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
