5 Swine Flu Resources for Nursing Patients

Nurses and nursing students often get put to the test with health related questions from their patients, family members, neighbors and sometimes perfect strangers.

With the recent news hype surrounding the swine flu outbreak in Mexico and parts of the U.S., many nurses are getting questions about this particular strain of influenza.  I covered some basic swine flu education for nurses and students yesterday.

Today, I want to provide you with some resources specifically for your patients.  Use these to help answer questions and teach your patients to get their information from trusted resources and not from their favorite bubble-headed news anchor.  (I’ve worked with them and most of them are idiots!)

I saved the best for last so read the whole article.  (Go ahead, I’ll wait.)

1  The FDA’s Influenza Patient Education Tutorial

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) have an excellent set of patient tutorials on many common illnesses and conditions.  Their interactive and video online tutorial on influenza is just one of them. There is also a Spanish language influenza tutorial for your Hispanic patient populations.

This and others in this tutorial series provide easy to understand information about the stated topic and often include printable resources and links for people to follow.

2  The CDC Audio Podcast Series on Swine Flu

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have short, recorded audio and video files for download or for podcast subscription that are excellent sources of high quality information without the media hype.

Here is the link to the CDC Swine Flu Audio update podcast.  Check it out.  It is a good resource to send to a client via email or to listen along with your client in the office or in their home.

3  The CDC “Swine Flu and You” web page

While the name might make you giggle a bit, this web page is chock full of information for everyone including RNs, LPNs, AND their patients.  This page answers many of the more common swine flu questions and provides links to other useful information.

This is a good information starting point for anyone looking for basic answers to their swine flu questions.  There is also a Spanish language version of this page.

4  Differences and Definitions About Influenza Strains

The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (yeah, they have an institute for everything), has a great page that explains some of the differences between the media buzz words.

What do “Flu”, “Influenza”, “Bird Flu”, “Pandemic”, and other words really mean? This page about the difference between Seasonal Flu, Pandemic Flu, and Avian (Bird) Flu has some good answers to common questions about these terms.

5  Taking Care of a Swine Flu Case in Your Home

What if one of your patients has a family member who has been diagnosed with swine flu?  This article on taking care of a swine flu case in your home is the perfect resource for them.

I saved the best for last.  The information from this CDC web page on caring for a sick person with swine flu in the home provides easy to understand answers to questions and good intervention tips for a nurse to take and reinforce with the home care giver.

I love when a web site offers me quality nursing interventions that cover everything from patient care to preventing the spread to other family members.  There is even information about cleaning the home and laundry.