Community Health Nursing Course Details - Fees, Subjects, Syllabus, Duration, Eligibility, Career Scope

What is Community Health Nursing

Community Health Nursing is a part of the healthcare sector which caters to the healthcare-related aspects of a certain geographical community. Community healthcare includes the aspects of scrutinizing the risk factors and finding ways to curb them, which involves the spread of the word about these issues in the society, health promotion for the residents of the society and the prevention of diseases to name a few measures. The community healthcare can be of three types: primary, secondary, and tertiary. The primary sector includes the study of the risk factors, the spread of word, organizing campaigns, etc., while the secondary sector comprises the treatment of the patients. The tertiary includes advanced medical treatment techniques.

Candidates who enroll themselves in the community health nursing learn to examine and diagnose the common health problems and to treat the patients accordingly with the available medical resources. As this course is a nursing course, the candidates are taught to carry out the basic medical treatment without the doctors, but they are not the doctors. The primary aim of the courses of this field in India is to build a skilled medical task force to improve the health in the rural areas.

Community Health Nursing Highlights

Eligibility Criteria (UG & PG) of Community Health Nursing

The eligibility criteria for the community health nursing courses are quite similar for the colleges in India for undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The following points will provide gist for the general eligibility criteria for the community health nursing course in India:

For undergraduate courses

• Candidates who wish to pursue community health nursing courses after the completion of Class 12 will need to have the completion certificate of Class 12 from a recognized institution.
• Along with the certificate, they should have studied Physics, Chemistry, and Biology in Class 12.
• Candidates should have at least 45 percent aggregate in their class 12 certificate.

For postgraduate courses

• Candidates willing to pursue postgraduate community health nursing courses need to have a completion certificate of B.Sc in Nursing from a recognized institute.
• Candidates also need to have at least 55 percent aggregate in their bachelor’s degree.
• Candidates are advised to acquire the work experience of a year before applying to postgraduate community health nursing courses. 

Community Health Nursing Entrance Exams

There are various national level, state level, and university level entrance exams that are conducted across the country to select prospective candidates for the admission to the community health nursing courses. The following is the list of a few popular entrance exams:

AIIMS Nursing: It is a national level entrance test that is conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to select the candidates for the admission into their undergraduate nursing courses.

JIPMER Nursing: It is a university-level exam that is conducted by JawaharLal Institute of Post graduate Medical Education Research to conduct admission into their post-graduate nursing course.

PGIMER Nursing: It is a national level entrance exam that is conducted by the Post graduate Institute of Medical Education Research to carry out the admission process for undergrad and postgrad nursing courses.

Indian Army Nursing: It is a national level exam that is conducted by Directorate General of Medical Services for the admission into their undergraduate nursing course.

Jamia Hamdard Nursing: It is a university-level entrance test that is conducted for the admission process for the undergraduate nursing courses at the Jamia University.

The community health nursing admission process is mostly similar for the colleges and the universities offering such courses in India. Though there are a few colleges that provide admission only on the basis of the merit of the previous educational qualification, mostly the universities carry out entrance exams to check for the knowledge and the skills of the prospective students. The following steps summarize the basic general procedure that is followed for the admission process to the nursing courses.

• Candidates willing to apply for the admission to community health nursing courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate level must hold onto a completion certificate of their previous academia.
• Candidates will have to appear for the entrance exams that are carried out at various levels to secure their seat in their desired college or university.
• There are a few universities that also conduct personal interview rounds to check for the personal skills of the candidates.
• The candidates who secure good scores in their entrance exams, have a good aggregate in their previous academic record and also qualify the personal interview round are then shortlisted to give the admission to the colleges.  

Required Skillset for Community Health Nursing

The people who take up community health nursing should inculcate a few skills in themselves apart from the technical skills that will help them with their work field. The candidates should possess patience and must be willing to serve their patients wholeheartedly and humbly. The nursing field requires patience, dedication, stamina to work long hours and the dedication to give their best to all of their patients. Along with this, they also need to imbibe the given qualities in themselves:

-       Modesty

-       Empathy

-       Sensitiveness

-       Commitment to work

-       Communication skills

-       Professionalism

-       Patience