Abdel-Rahman, Deol, Ganesh et al Implementing a Winter Wellness University Program International Journal of Nursing Student Scholarship (IJNSS). Volume 7, 2020. Article 51. ISSN 2291-6679. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync/4.0/ IMPLEMENTING A WINTER WELLNESS UNIVERSITY PROGRAM: A COMMUNITY HEALTH NURSING PROJECT By: Bassem Abdel-Rahman 1 , Gurjot Deol 2 , Seema Ganesh 3 , Brittney Kuzio 4 , Diana Mukhametzyanova 5 , Kiril Plehanov 6 , Stephanie Schroeder 7 , Michael Webb 8 , and Tam Truong Donnelly* 1-8 BN Students in 2 nd year (Winter 2018 session) Faculty of Nursing, PF2290, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4, Canada * Corresponding Author: Tam Truong Donnelly, PhD, RN, Professor Email: tdonnell@ucalgary.ca This paper was completed in April 2018 as part of an undergraduate course NURS 289 (Integrating Nursing Roles and Practices 1: Learning, Praxis and Scholarship in the Practicum) project at a University in Western Canada. All students contributed equally. The authors are listed alphabetically. Dr. Tam Truong Donnelly was the faculty expert, advisor, and instructor for this group of students. Abstract To improve the health and wellness of students, faculty and staff in a university setting, the authors developed and implemented a four-week health and wellness challenge project based on the application of the Population Health Promotion Model and the Community as Partner model to each of the steps of the community health nursing process. The purpose of this paper is to describe this community health improvement project, The Winter Wellness Challenge (WWC), which involved one university faculty in Western Canada. The entire project, which occurred over a 3-month period, included the following elements: a community health assessment of the community where the university was situated, which was initiated via a windshield survey, self- evaluated health status of program participants done via Survey Monkey prior to the start of the WWC program, the four-week intervention, and a post-intervention survey. In addition, key informant interviews were conducted with 21 participants after completion of the WWC to solicit participants’ feedback about the utility of the project and to seek recommendations to improve future WWCs. The salient findings showed improvement in social support, duration of sleep, and stress level. From the participants’ perspective, the greatest improvement was in physical and nutritional wellness. The participants advocated for continuing implementation of the challenge in the future. Recommendations for improving the WWC were also provided. Keywords: Community health promotion; wellness challenge; nursing education; nursing clinical practicum; community collaboration. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by University of Calgary Journal Hosting