Levels of health promotion (primary, secondary, & tertiary)

Levels of health promotion essay sample

(Levels of health promotion essay sample) Primary health promotion is education provided prior to disease or the identification of specific risk factors. For example, the CDC identifies certain vaccinations and the use of condoms as primary health promotion/ disease prevention of sexually transmitted infections (Primary Prevention Methods, n.d.). This level of prevention may not require active involvement from the patient but promotes awareness(Levels of health promotion essay sample). Secondary health promotion is intervention to prevent disease once specific risk factors have been identified, but prior to the onset of disease. Example, diabetic and weight control education for a nondiabetic person whose parents are overweight and have developed type 2 diabetes. At this stage the patient must be encouraged to take action to prevent disease or mitigate any long-term damage. Tertiary health promotion is education and an action plan once disease has been identified. Example, rehabilitation programs for substance abuse. The goal of education is to minimize damage and promote change to facilitate healing and help the patient to live their best quality of life with disease (Faulkner, 2018).(Levels of health promotion essay sample)

Faulkner. (2018). Health Promotion: Health & Wellness Across the Continuum. In Health Promotion in Nursing Care. https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs429vn/health-promotion-health-and-wellness-across-the-continuum/v1.1/#/chapter/2

Primary Prevention Methods. (n.d.). https://www.cdc.gov/std/treatment-guidelines/clinical-primary.htm

The primary prevention level of health promotion focuses on promoting health to prevent people from getting sick (Nola et al.,2018). It is a situation where individuals engage in something that will prevent sickness, such as exercising to prevent obesity, eating healthy to avoid being sick, and vaccinating to prevent illness. While secondary prevention is when diseases are detected and treated early before progressing to critical conditions(Levels of health promotion essay sample). This includes having a mammogram to screen for breast cancer and, undergoing dual energy x-ray to detect osteoporosis, treating the sex partners of an individual infected with a sexually transmitted disease to prevent it from spreading. Tertiary prevention occurs when the chronic illness has already caused permanent damage and is being managed to avoid complications and further damage. This also refers to rehabilitation following chronic disease. For example, a diabetes patient works on his condition by frequently examining his feet, daily skin care, blood sugar control, and physical exercise to prevent complications. Another example of tertiary prevention is when a stroke patient takes aspirin continually to avoid a second stroke from occurring.(Levels of health promotion essay sample)

The nurse must adequately assess the level of prevention to know precisely the appropriate education that should be provided for the patient (Whitehead, 2018). The story of prevention is the yardstick to determine the patient’s educational need. For instance, people are healthy at the primary prevention level; they should be educated on the importance of exercising, such as weightlifting, eating healthy, and spinning to prevent illness(Levels of health promotion essay sample). At the secondary prevention level, the nurse should provide prevention education for early detection and treatment of conditions to stop the disease progression such as providing teaching early detection of disease, self-breast examination, the importance of undergoing mammograms as screening for breast cancer and training a diabetic patient on how to monitor blood sugar. Patients should also be prepared to see their primary doctors when they experience illness symptoms, such as elevated temperature, to receive early treatment. Lastly, at the tertiary prevention level, the patient should be taught how to go for appropriate rehabilitation, take their medication regularly, manage their disease, and cope well with their condition.(Levels of health promotion essay sample)

References

Nola J. Pender; Carolyn L. Murdaugh; Mary Ann Parsons &. (2018a). Health promotion in nursing practice (8th ed.). Pearson Education (US).

Whitehead, D. (2018). Exploring health promotion and health education in nursing. Nursing Standard, 33(8), 38–44. https://doi.org/10.7748/ns.2018.e11220

The three levels of health promotion include primary, secondary and tertiary level of prevention (Falkner, 2018). Nurses practicing all the levels are involved in five steps including health promotion and specific protection representing primary prevention: early diagnosis, quick response and disability limitation reflecting secondary level as well as rehabilitating the fall under tertiary prevention. These levels play a critical role in prevention of disease and provides guide to health care providers to ensure they deliver quality care for better patient outcome. However, the three levels are differentiated in that while primary prevention focuses on preventing the development of disease, secondary prevention level is focused on providing screening activities and treating early stages of disease since at this stage, the disease is already detected, and all efforts are directed in limiting the consequences of advanced disease.(Levels of health promotion essay sample)

Hubley and Copeman (2018), say that in Similar, both primary and secondary prevention treatment emphasize on preventing actual disease and early diagnosis while in tertiary the focus is more on reducing any further complications of the disease. Tertiary level being the last prevention level is involved in treatment, rehabilitative and patient education activities. In addition, in primary level of health promotion nurses educate patient on their health or nutrition since health education forms part of primary prevention. For secondary prevention level, nurses should encourage patients to often go for screening to detect disease in its early stage and lastly in tertiary level nurses provide rehabilitation services. Moreover, nurses must understand the significant role they play on patient health care since this is very important on healthcare.(Levels of health promotion essay sample)

Reference

Falkner, A. (2018). Health Promotion: Health & Wellness Across the Continuum. Health

Promotion in Nursing Care.Retrieved from https://lc.gcumedia.com/nrs429vn/health- promotion-

health-and-wellness-across-the- continuum/v1.1/#/chapter/2

Hubley, J., & Copeman, J. (2018). Practical health promotion. John Wiley & Sons.