Women’s Health Nursing in Turkey and in The World

Abstract

Nursing, as a community service, is a profession that has existed since ancient times, with the desire to make people healthy, to ensure the comfort of people, to take care of the patient and to provide the patient with a sense of safety. Due to the impact of technology on healthcare, and with the increase in knowledge, many nurses today are seeking to work in an expanding, specialized or advanced practitioner role. Women's health nursing undertakes the roles of education, counseling, evidence-based work, research and scientific knowledge production, reducing the cost of care and increasing community satisfaction, with a woman-centered holistic approach at each life stage of women, in order to prevent diseases, and to protect and improve health. In developed countries in the field of Women's Health Nursing, such as the USA, England and Thailand, women's health nursing is a very special field of advanced nursing practices, which provides a woman-centered holistic approach, in the delivery of primary healthcare services, requiring master or PhD level expertise, and has dynamic&highly autonomous roles. Considering the developing countries, it is seen that women's health nursing is not really developed and it is carried out under the name of community-based nursing or "midwifery" in these countries. In 2011, women's health nursing roles and responsibilities were announced in our country, but its special fields were not included. In this context, it is necessary to develop special fields such as urogynecology, infertility, perinatology, gynecology and gynecological oncology, sexual health, menopause, as well as reorganize the roles and responsibilities of specialist nurses and all these should be supported within the scope of legal regulation.