Bookshelf for the community health nurse specialist.

Abstract

ALMOST twenty years have elapsed since Dorothy Deming courageously prepared the extensive and scholarly bibliography entitled Public Health Nurse's Bookshelf (A.J.P.H. 41:375-382, April, 1951). Over the next two decades the literature continued to emphasize the work of the nurse prepared in a baccalaureate program for practice in the public health arena. Examples of this approach are Pearl Coulter's The Nurse in the Public Health Program (Putnam, 1954); Ruth Freeman's Public Health Nursing Practice (Saunders, 1950-1957-1963) ; Corcoran and Corrigan's Knowledge for the Practice of Public Health Nursing (Catholic University Press, 1962); Ethel Kallins' Textbook of Public Health Nursing (Mosby, 1967); Leahy and Cobb's Fundamentals of Public Health Nursing (McGraw-Hill, 1966); Stewart and Vincent's Public Health Nursing: A Book of Readings (W. C. Brown, 1968). The decade of the sixties saw a change of emphasis in public health. The focus became that of involvement of the in planning for and implementing a program for health care. The was conceived as including professionals, consumers, and representatives of the public-private sectors who were in a partnership to develop a community of solution for handling problems related to the delivery of health care. Health Is a Community Affair (Harvard University Press, 1966) summarizes this approach. This trend was bound to have an impact on developments in nursing. The reorganization of the American Nurses' Association (ANA) resulted in the establishment of a Division on Community Health Nursing Practice. Public health nurses from ANA and the Public Health Nursing Section of the American Public Health Association have had discussions concerning the qualifications and preparation through a master's degree program of a specialist in health nursing practice. All of this has influenced the development of a specialty area in health nursing in nursing education programs. This bibliography presents the books which should be of value to the nurse in preparing for and practicing in this nursing specialty. It provides the basis for the systematic investigation of the nursing process in providing care for family and groups. It involves the specialist in action for comprehensive health care, but also emphasizes the independent judgment required for appropriate nursing intervention. However, the bibliography does not in-