Promotion In Nursing

Primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of health promotion) in nursing practice

INTRODUCTION

Nurses play a very important role in the field of health care, and are sometimes referred as patients main advocates. However, just as the role of doctors, administrators, medical students and virtually every aspect of the health care system has changed, so too has that of nurses. Many of these changes have been driven by things like healthcare reform, advances in technology and medicine, the way patients use hospitals, the interaction between patients and caregivers, and increased interest in behavioral and lifestyle changes, patient safety and emergency preparedness.

Although the task of this paper is focused on ‘health promotion’, some time will

Interventions - Lee Westmaas, et al, in ‘Designing and Implementing Interventions to Promote Health and Prevent Illness’, states that Interventions can be identified by the point along the health-illness continuum at which they occur. They contend that Primary Prevention focuses on changing behaviors to prevent illness from occurring; Secondary prevention interventions are those that occur after the individual has been diagnosed with a condition, disease, or illness and seek to stop or reverse its progression; while Tertiary prevention interventions seek to control the devastating complications of an illness or negative health

“Secondary prevention refers to activities like screening and early diagnosis that aid in treatment of the existing health problem, disease, or harmful situation. It ranges from providing screening activities and treating early stages of disease to limiting disability by averting or delaying the onset of advanced disease” (3). iii. Tertiary prevention – This “aims to reduce the impact of the disease and promote quality of life through active rehabilitation” (4). It “refers the person to optimum function or maintenance of life skills through long-term treatment and rehabilitation”. It addresses treatment, rehabilitation, and patient education. This category is used when the disability or disease cannot be reversed or is permanent”. (3)

New Pathway Counseling Services Inc., in an in HEALTH article entitled ‘What is Difference between health promotion and health prevention?’ summarized that while prevention addresses a specific risk and known cause of a disease, health promotion strives to support the resources of people which help them to prevent sickness, and to support their autonomy. Prevention is related to the pathogentic approach; looking at diseases. Health promotion on the other side is connected to so called salutogenesis; but both have the same aim: to avoid sickness and to staying