Factors Influencing the Involvement of Nurses in Preventive Care and Health Literacy in the Czech Republic

Abstract

The aims of this article were to discuss the position of Czech nurses in the country's health care system, to assess their role in the preventive care and health literacy (HL) promotion and to define main factors, which may negatively impact their involvement in preventive care. We checked by the questionnaire, what is the position of nurses working in the primary care in the Czech health system, how nurses perceive their role in the preventive care and which factors influence their involvement. The expert opinion method was used to discover main barriers limiting the role of primary care nurses in prevention and HL promotion. A total of 204 nurses participated between May and June 2022 in an online survey. The survey was completed by interviews with five experts. Our main finding is that nurses are willing to be proactive in prevention and HL; however, their autonomy and responsibilities in these areas remain rather low. The main factors influencing the involvement of nurses in preventive care are the type of practice, age of nurses, and the administrative burden. The expert interviews propose that nurses are overloaded and that, in many cases, they do not really know their responsibilities in the field of preventive care. The core policy lesson derived from our research is that appropriate definition of roles and responsibilities of nurses and their related empowerment might represent critical measures towards increasing health system resilience and sustainability.