Health Prevention Strategies and Communication

Primary Prevention

• Promotes health and prevents disease/injury
• Examples include immunization clinics, family planning, poison control information, accident prevention education, and teaching about healthy diets, exercise, seat belts, and safe sex.

Secondary Prevention

• Screens for early disease detection
• Aims to identify illnesses, reverse severity, provide cures, and restore maximum health.

Tertiary Prevention

• Begins after diagnosis and treatment
• Goal is to reduce disability, aid rehabilitation, and restore maximum functioning

Communication Considerations

• Physically Impaired: Utilize augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strategies.
• Eye Blinks/Hand Squeezes: Used to communicate yes or no.
• Mentally Challenged: Maintain eye contact, create a quiet environment, use simplified terms, use closed-ended questions, and be patient, willing to repeat.
• Unconscious Patients: Assume they can hear, speak before touching, maintain a quiet environment.
• Visually Impaired: Acknowledge presence, identify self, explain touches, indicate conversation end and departure.
• Foreign Language Barriers: Employ a medical interpreter, utilize a dictionary, and speak in simple terms.
• Interpersonal Communication: Exchange messages between two or more people.
• Intrapersonal Communication: Self-talk.
• Nurse-Client Relationship (Orientation Phase): Clarify roles and establish agreement.
• Patient Orientation: Provide facility, service, admission, and comfort information.
• Self-Awareness, Empathy, Confidence: Crucial for strong, trusting relationships.
• Patient Assessment Enhancement: Nurses can enhance focus, empathy, and clinical reasoning to improve care quality.
• Supportive Environment: Creates an effective environment for accurate data collection, fostering trust.
• Communication Barriers: Include developmental level, sociocultural differences, roles/responsibilities, spatial/territorial factors, mental/emotional state, values, and environment.
• Closed-Ended Questions: Require yes/no responses, providing specific information.
• Open-Ended Questions: Encourage detailed responses, exploring concerns.

Illness Types

• Acute Illness: Rapid onset, short duration (e.g., appendicitis, pneumonia, diarrhea, common cold).
• Chronic Illness: Slow onset, periods of remission and exacerbation (e.g., asthma, cancer, epilepsy, hypertension, arthritis).
• Permanent Changes: Result from irreversible alterations.

Dimensions of Health

• Emotional Dimension: Identifies emotional symptoms' impact on the body. Symptoms include anxiety, depression, impulsive behaviors, and concentration difficulties.
• Physical Dimension: Considers genetic inheritance, age, developmental level, race, and gender. Symptoms may include genetic conditions like Down syndrome, color blindness, or sickle cell anemia.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

• Physiological Needs: Basic needs for survival (hunger, thirst, elimination, reproduction, mobility).
• Safety and Security Needs: Physical and emotional safety.
• Self-Actualization Needs: Full comfort, respect, problem-solving, and interest pursuit.

Cultural Awareness in Nursing

• Cultural Diversity: Meeting the religious needs of culturally diverse patients.
• Ethnocentrism: Belief in the superiority of one's own culture.
• Culture: Shared values, beliefs, and practices.
• Ethnicity: Sense of identification with a cultural group.

Infection Control

• A-B-C Priority: Airway, breathing, circulation.
• Agent (Infection Source): Bacteria, fungi, viruses.
• Host: Living being harboring the agent.
• Environment: Physical surroundings impacting infection spread.
• Incubation Period: Time between infection and symptom onset.
• Prodromal Stage: Early signs/symptoms, highly infectious.
• Full (Acute) Stage: Infection-specific signs/symptoms.
• Convalescent Period: Recovery, potential health changes due to infection severity.
• Surgical Asepsis: Sterile procedures (e.g., catheter insertion, dressing changes).
• Immunosuppressed Patients: Increased vulnerability to infections, from their own body's organisms.

Healthcare Recommendations for Immunosuppressed Patients

• Ensure provider's health.
• Restrict visits from contagious individuals.
• Avoid standing water.
• Adhere to hospital protocols (e.g., PPE).

Patient Recommendations for Immunosuppressed Patients

• Frequent handwashing.
• Disinfectants/antibacterial wipes.
• Avoid personal item sharing.
• Crowds avoidance.
• Risk of injury minimization.
• Avoidance of sick or recently vaccinated individuals.
• Proper food handling, preparation, and refrigeration.
• Attention to expiration dates.

Vital Signs

• Blood Pressure Cuff Sizing: 75-100% bladder length, 37-50% width, 2:1 length-to-width ratio; should allow 1-2 fingers to fit inside.
• Cuff Too Wide: Low reading.
• Cuff Too Narrow: High reading.
• Pulse Rate: Number of heartbeats per minute, measured at an artery.
• Pulse Rhythm: Pattern of pulse beats.
• Pulse Amplitude: Quality of pulse, indicating blood volume and left ventricle strength.
• Temperature Measurement (Accuracy): Rectal (most accurate). Axillary (least accurate).

Fire Safety

• RACE Protocol: Rescue, Activate, Confine, Evacuate.