Discuss Preventive Measures in Health Care

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Preventive Measure in Health Care

Prevention measures in health care is a concept that states to upstream interferences, which pursue to help people maintain or improve health before it is compromised. This stands in be different to the traditional role of the health care system that is to re-establish health once it has already come under menace. Preventive healthcare involves measures that are used to prevent diseases rather than treating the disease. There are preventive services, which aim to avoid illnesses and improve people’s health. This is done by patient counselling and screenings to avert illness, routine check-ups, disease and other health-related problems. The actions of the preventive measure in health care is aimed at eliminating, eradicating or diminishing the influence of disease and disability, or if none of these are possible, delaying the progress of the disease and disability. The notion of prevention is well-defined in the context of levels; primary, secondary and tertiary prevention.

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Primary Prevention

Primary prevention aims to prevent ill-health from happening. Action is taken to reduce the occurrence of the disease and health difficulties within the inhabitants; through world-wide measures that lessen lifestyle risks and their reasons or by targeting high-risk groups. Primary prevention attempt to eliminate the possibility of getting a disease. An example would be making people aware of risks that are linked to smoking, poor diet and no exercise. Children and young people are educated in school about the risks through posters, leaflets and presentations. Children and young people need to be educated about the risk of smoking, drugs and excessive drinking because it can have an impact in their development.

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Primary prevention pursues to prevent the beginning of specific diseases through risk reduction: by altering behaviours or exposures that can lead to disease, or by enhancing fight to the effects of exposure to a disease agent. Examples include smoking cessation and vaccination. This is important because tobacco smoke contains a lethal mix of more than seven thousands chemicals: hundreds are harmful, and about seventy can cause cancer. Smoking rises the risk for grave health problems, many diseases, and death. This is way it is essential for the government initiatives and legations are used to prevent diseases from increasing. Primary prevention reduces the occurrence of disease by addressing disease risk factors or by enhancing resistance. Primary prevention usually targets specific causes and risk factors for specific diseases, but may also purpose to promote healthy behaviours, improve host resistance, and foster harmless environments that reduce the risk of disease, for example, in-depth cleaning of operating rooms to prevent post-operative infection.

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Legislation and Government Initiatives in Primary Prevention

Distribution of free condoms in areas of high HIV prevalence and educating couples about “safe sex” and the dangers of sexually transmitted infections and diseases is an example of government initiatives in primary prevention. For example; advertisement is used to promote “safe sex” in the mass media and adolescents are informed of the dangers of unprotected intercourse in schools.

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Government agencies for food legalisation are set up to prevent food poisoning. The responsibilities of these agencies are to inspect catering places and slaughterhouses and teach about hygienic food-handling practices to prevent outbreaks of food poisoning.

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Education on healthy and safe habits, such as eating a balance diet, no smoking and exercising regularly are endorsed in young children in primary schools in order to tackle the health issues associated with smoking, bad eating habits and minimum or no exercise. For example malnourishment is a cause of unhealthy eating ...

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Government agencies for food legalisation are set up to prevent food poisoning. The responsibilities of these agencies are to inspect catering places and slaughterhouses and teach about hygienic food-handling practices to prevent outbreaks of food poisoning.

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Education on healthy and safe habits, such as eating a balance diet, no smoking and exercising regularly are endorsed in young children in primary schools in order to tackle the health issues associated with smoking, bad eating habits and minimum or no exercise. For example malnourishment is a cause of unhealthy eating and therefore, the government would draft a policy that made sure that children are taught about a balance diet and the importance of it. A balance diet question is common in primary and secondary science and physical education exams.

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Immunisation, such as vaccines are used in school and health and social care organisation against infectious diseases.

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Secondary Prevention

Secondary prevention addresses those people acknowledged as being in the early stages of a disease, usually through early detection and symptoms. The action for this emphasis on addressing the fundamental causes, in order to lessen any further symptoms. Secondary prevention relies partly on educating the population about signs of illness that involve prompt referral to the health service, combined with systematic surveillance to detect and report cases rapidly and respond with effective treatment. The secondary prevention aims to change individual’s unhealthy habits, which can worsen their health condition to the chronic stage. This is done by screening programmes; antenatal, adult, baby and child. This would help to identify the possible problems because screening is a systematic examination or assessment, done particularly to detect an unwanted substance or characteristic. For example; an adult could be screened to find out about characteristics or substance that can cause them to have a severe disease or illness.

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Secondary Prevention Examples

Regular exams and screening tests for service users would help to detect disease in its earliest stages in order to provide the service uses’ specialist care and make sure that the disease does not spread to a chronic stage. For example, the government had established a policy where women over the age of 50 are encouraged to have mammograms in order to detect any signs of breast cancer.

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People who are likely to have a heart attack or stroke are encourage by health and social practitioners or advertisement to take little amounts of aspirins and painkillers because it can worsen their quality of life. They are further more encouraged to join in exercise programmes to help aid the pain and improve their health.

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Tertiary Prevention

Tertiary prevention is refers to the control and reduction of an already established disease. Tertiary prevention is seen as a clinic by many service users and care practitioner because the aim of this prevention is to help people manage the long-term health problems and injuries. Medical treatment to prevent the worst results of a disease in an individual is acknowledged as tertiary. Although this may significantly improve the quality of life for that person, it has at most a limited effect on the spread of infectious disease. Tertiary prevention is completed by helping people manage long-term health problems and injuries in order to recover as much as possible. For example; somebody with cancer may be given 6 months left to live and no chance of recovering, but tertiary prevention and health related professionals can help give the support and advice to a cancer sufferer, helping them to deal with their disease and to make the next 6 months the most comfortable and happiest.

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Nurses’ Prevention Measures

A nurse can perform a breast screening as a secondary prevention for a patient because it is the stage to discover or find out if the service user has characteristics or substances that can lead to diseases. In this case, it is to find out if the service user has or is able to have breast cancer. The NHS breast screening programme makes it available for female service user to have a free screening examination every three years. The programme is only free for women that are fifty or above years old. These women are routinely invited to have a breast screening every three years. The NHS is in the process of lengthening the programme as an experimental, offering screening to some women aged 47-73. The NHS takes into consideration that the average age of menopause is fifty years old and therefore, it is viewed that mammograms, which is x-rays for each breast, are not effective for women that are in the pre-menopause stage. This can be because the density of the breast tissue can make it more difficult to detect problems. The mammogram can sense small changes in breast tissue, which may specify cancers that are too minor to be felt either by the women herself or the nurse. Nurses care for women who may not be able to talk with family or friends. This is because it is a sensitive topic and service users can prefer to talk to professional about their worries.

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A nurse would give advice to a patient in the tertiary prevention for treatment or rehabilitation in their health condition. For example; a patient that has lung cancer would be personally advised by a nurse. This is because lung cancer is portrayed as a lethal health condition and often too complicated for a service user to comprehend. We view the causes of lung cancer by smoking or passive smoking. However, radon gas and Asbestos fibres can also cause lung cancer. The tertiary prevention is achieved by the nurse when he or she gives advice to the patients. The nurse would inform the service user about the stages of lung cancer and how far the cancer had spread. This would have a positive impact on the service user because they would the impact and the treatment they can choose. The treatment options are small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer. Small cell lung cancer is treated by chemotherapy whilst non-small cell lung cancer treated with surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy or a combination of both.

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Doctors’ Prevention Measures

A doctor would perform a screening for a pregnant woman to see if there is a problem with her baby. This is primary prevention because the doctor would want to advice the pregnant woman about ways to keep her nutrients. Eating a healthy balance diet is essential because the mother is the primary source for nutrients for the child. The doctor would help the mother know what foods that contain protein, calcium, folic acid and iron would help the development of the child and can prevent diseases. What the mother eats can affect the child’s development. According to Amy Fleming article on ‘Pregnancy food: what you eat can affect your child for life’ it states that eating an excessive amount of unhealthy or processed food can “heightens the risk of conditions like pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes and postpartum haemorrhage.” The doctor would advise the pregnant woman in ways of eating healthier to prevent these diseases to her and the child.

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A doctor would advise a service user that has HIV of different treatment options. This is a tertiary prevention because the service user is in the chronic stage due to already being diagnosed with the health condition. The aim of the doctor is to help guide and educate the service user about their health condition in order for the HIV not to worsen. The NHS offers for those service users that have been diagnosed with HIV to have regular blood tests, which is used to monitor the progress of the HIV infection. Treatment is offered to service users that can cause the level of the virus in their blood to be lower. It can be difficult for a service user to accept and comprehend the fact that they have HIV. The doctor would inform the service user about the impact the treatment can have in their health and what would happen after it.

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Government Health Initiatives that Nurses and Doctors are oblige to follow

The government policy “Our health, our care, our say” is a guideline followed by nurses and doctors when they practice the tertiary and secondary prevention. The policy was endorsed by Tony Blair, former Prime Minster of the Labour party in order to grantee that service users have a say in their medical treatment. This is because the service users are informed of the risk that continuing the bad health can cause to their health in the secondary prevention and in tertiary prevention they are informed about treatment options. The nurse or doctor would not dictate the choices made by the service users. The policy states that service users should choose the healthcare they wanted provided by the nurse or doctor. Therefore, the nurse or doctor working with a patient that is ill, views and wishes would be seen as unimportant or foolish. Nurses and doctors are oblige to respect the wishes of service users in the secondary and tertiary prevention. If a patient does not change their bad eating habits in the secondary prevention stage; the nurse and doctor are expected to further aid the patient in the tertiary prevention stage.

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The government had created a health policy called “The Policy Guidance Help System” for breast cancer screening measures for nurses and doctors. If a female service user is below the age of fifty, then she would have to directly ask a nurse or doctor about the possibility of having mammogram. However, when a female service user is at the age of fifty then she would be asked to visit the nearest clinic or hospital that does mammograms for a routine check-up every two years by a nurse or a doctor. This is because women at the age of fifty and above are more likely to have breast cancer and therefore, the government had created policy to prevent the spread of breast cancer raising for women that are fifty and above. The government had further taken action by making sure that the nurses and doctors oblige to ask patients if they feel like having a mammogram if they have a relative that had or has breast cancer.

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Nurses and doctors inform patients of eating healthy and participating in exercising programme in order to have a healthy active lifestyle. This would link to the government initiative Change4Life health campaign. The health campaign highlights the importance in tackling the increase of obesity in children and adults, which costs NHS billions every year. Nurses and doctors in hospitals and GP give service users pamphlets and leaflets of Change4Life. By doing this the nurse and doctor are working to government aim of decreasing the number of children and adults that are obese and making people more active and healthier. The government health campaign identifies root to obesity is the food and the amount of exercises or activities a person does. Therefore, a nurse or doctor would inform patients and their relatives on the importance of eating well and exercising regularly can have on a person’s health.

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The government has modernised the HIV and AID policy in healthcare organisation to benefit the patients with the sexual diseases. The old policy and standards was drafted in the 1980’s, where the STD and STI were viewed unacceptable in society and that it was seen as a consequence of homosexual behaviour. In modern society, people are more likely to have STD or STI if that has person has multiple sex partners due to the change of values in society. The number of couples getting marriage has decreased in 2014 by 35% when compared to 1980 when it was 67%. This an example of the change of society. The new policy would grantee that patients would have more rights in deciding what treatment they would want and how they would deal with the news of having HIV or sexual diseases. In the past, it would be a doctor having the final say after discussing it with other care practitioner, such as nurses. This meant that patients with STD or STI would have very little say on what they thought was more important.

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