Feasibility of describing community strengths relative to Omaha system concepts

The purpose was to determine the feasibility of using a standardized language, the Omaha System, to describe community-level strengths. The objectives were: (a) to evaluate the feasibility of using the Omaha System at the community level to reflect community strengths and (b) to describe preliminary results of community strengths observations across international settings.

A descriptive qualitative design was used. The sample was a data set of 284 windshield surveys by nursing students in 5 countries: Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Turkey, and the United States.

An online survey included a checklist and open-ended questions on community strengths for 11 concepts of the Omaha System Problem Classification Scheme: Income, Sanitation, Residence, Neighborhood/workplace safety, Communication with community resources, Social contact, Interpersonal relationship, Spirituality, Nutrition, Substance use, and Health care supervision. Themes were derived through content analysis of responses to the open-ended questions.

Feasibility was demonstrated: Students were able to use the Omaha System terms and collect data on strengths. Common themes were described among the five countries.

The Omaha System appears to be useful in documenting community-level strengths. Themes and exemplar quotes provide a first step in developing operational definitions of strengths at a more granular level.