Pilot study: how Sydney community nurses identified food security, and student nurse focus group perceptions

Abstract

Objectives: This paper aims to discuss and explore food security in the context of community health nursing, to provide insight about how frontline workers may identify whether their client is food secure.

Design: A qualitative descriptive design pilot study, using questionnaire and unstructured interviews.

Setting: Community health services across Sydney.

Subject: How community health nurses identify whether their client is food secure.

Method: Three community health nurses were interviewed and their responses recorded. Two student nurses participated in
a focus group during professional work experience in community health.

Findings/Results: Although community health nurses claim they can identify whether their clients are food (in)secure, it remains unclear how they operationalise this claim, and indeed if they do, what the outcome may be for their clients’ health determinants.

Primary argument: To raise awareness and stimulate discussion about food security as a social determinant of health, and whether community nurses have a role identifying client food security.

Conclusion: Food (in)security is increasingly recognised as a social determinant of health, with evidence that the prevalence of food insecurity is increasing in Australia. It is acknowledged that community health nurses have established professional relationships with their clients, and that food insecurity may be identified though formal and informal means.
A more open discussion is required about food (in)security and potential ways in which it may be discussed in nonjudgmental, sensitive ways. Further investigation is required to interview community health nurses, in the context of their relationships with clients, how they establish whether food security is occurring and being maintained.