The merging of participatory and analytical approaches to evaluation: implications for nurses in primary health care programs.
This paper addresses the need to make evaluation part of the nurse's expanded role within the Primary Health Care system. In a social policy and decision-making context, the nurse is an intermediary between political authorities and community groups. This requires diverse, but complementary, evaluation skills. The author proposes a dual method of evaluation for community health programs. The approach incorporates an objective-stance Logical Framework Analysis Model, to meet agencies' needs for program effectiveness and impact data, and a Participatory Evaluation approach, to recognize the ability of communities to judge whether health services are responsive to their needs. The nature and application of both methods within an International Primary Health Care context are explored. The paper concludes that access to a wide spectrum of evaluation data places the nursing profession in a challenging position to influence policy decisions related to health services.
D003152:Community Health Nursing; D003256:Community Participation; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D006291:Health Policy; D006302:Health Services Research / Q000379:methods*; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards*