Approaches to health promotion and disease Prevention

Approaches to health promotion and disease Prevention:

Differences between health promotion and Health Protection.


Health promotion: is the behavior of an individual that is motivated by a personal desire to increase well-being and health potential. It is a way of thinking that revolves around a philosophy of wholeness, wellness, and well-being.

Disease prevention or health protection as “behavior motivated by a desire to actively avoid illness, detect it early, or maintain functioning within the constraints of illness.
The individual’s underlying motivation for the behavior is the major difference.
The difficulty in separating the terms health promotion and disease prevention/health protection lies in the fact that an activity may be carried out for numerous reasons. For example, a 40-year-old male may begin a program of walking 3 miles each day. If the goal of his program were to “decrease the risk of cardiovascular disease,” then the activity would be considered disease prevention or health protection.
By contrast, if the motivation for his walking regimen were to “increase his overall health and feeling of well-being,” then the activity would be considered a health promotion behavior.
It is most helpful to think of health promotion and health protection as being complementary processes because both affect quality of health.
Health promotion can be offered to all clients regardless of their health and illness status or age. For example, weight-control measures can benefit both overweight clients without disease and clients with cardiac or joint disease.

So Promote: Working with communities and engaging with individuals to promote health

Protect: Addressing threats to health, responding to outbreaks

Prevent: Ensuring healthy development, enabling healthy behaviours, living and working in healthy environments



Primary Health Promotion and Illness Prevention
Primary health promotion and illness prevention is directed toward promoting health and preventing the development of disease processes or injury. Nursing activities at the primary level may focus on individuals or groups. Examples of primary-level activities are
1. immunization clinics,
2. family planning services,
3. providing poison-control information,
4. and accident-prevention education.

Other nursing interventions include teaching about a healthy diet, the importance of regular exercise, safety in industry and farms, using seat belts, and safer sex practices.
Health-risk assessments are an important part of primary health promotion and preventive care. A health-risk assessment is an assessment of the total person. The resulting “picture” of the individual indicates areas of risk for disease or injury as well as areas that support health.
A variety of formats are used to perform the assessment, but all of them take a broad approach to health, focusing on lifestyle and behaviors.

Examples of nursing Activities
Weight loss
Diet
Exercise
Smoking cessation
Alcohol consumption
Drugs
Farm safety
Seat belts and child safety seats
Immunizations
Water treatment
Safer sex practices
Parenting

Secondary Health Promotion and Illness Prevention

Secondary health promotion and illness prevention focuses on screening for early detection of disease with prompt diagnosis and treatment of those found. The goals of secondary preventive care are
1. To identify an illness,
2. Reverse or reduce the severity of the disease
3. Provide a cure,
4. And thereby return the individual to maximum health, as quickly as possible.

Examples of nursing activities at this level are

1. Assessing children for normal growth and development
2. And encouraging regular medical, dental, and vision examination.
Other activities include screenings (e.g., blood pressure, cholesterol, and skin cancer), recommending gynecologic examinations and mammograms for women as age-appropriate, and teaching testicular self-examination to men. Direct nursing care interventions at the secondary level include administering medications and caring for wounds.

Examples of nursing Activities

Screenings (Blood pressure, cholesterol, glaucoma, HIV, skin cancer)
Pap smears
Mammograms
Testicular examinations
Family counseling

Tertiary Health Promotion and Illness Prevention

Tertiary health promotion and disease prevention begins after an illness is diagnosed and treated to reduce disability and to help rehabilitate patients to a maximum level of functioning.

Nursing activities on a tertiary level include teaching a patient with diabetes how to recognize and prevent complications, using physical therapy to prevent contractures in a patient who has had a stroke or spinal cord injury, and referring a woman to a support group after removal of a breast because of cancer.

Nurses are important in monitoring the responses of the patient to the prescribed therapy and in providing services to patients to facilitate recovery or improve quality of life while living with the effects of an illness or injury.

Examples of nursing Activities

Medications
Medical therapy
Surgical treatment
Rehabilitation
Physical therapy
Occupational therapy
Job training
- Person.
Concept of Individuality
To help clients attain, maintain, or regain an optimal level of health, nurses need to understand clients as individuals. Each individual is a unique being who is different from every other human being, with a different combination of genetics, life experiences, and environmental interactions.
- Health – related behavior.

SUGGESTED SELF-CARE BEHAVIORS

Lifestyle practices that promote health include:

• Sleeping regularly, 7 to 8 hours per night
• Eating regular meals, which include recommended food groups
• Maintaining ideal body weight
• Having a regular schedule of exercise
• Using alcohol in moderation, if at all
• Not smoking
• Maintaining positive mental health and self-concept
• Practicing safer sex
• Wearing seatbelts, using car seats for children, and wearing bicycle helmets
• Having recommended screenings and checkups by medical and dental healthcare providers

If tried to change health habits (to stop smoking or exercise regularly, for example), don’t be discouraged if you haven’t yet succeeded.
The difficulty you have encountered may be due to influences you’ve never really thought about—such as advertising—or to a lack of support and encouragement.

Understanding these influences is an important step toward changing the way they affect you.
There’s help available. In addition to personal actions you can take on your own, there are community programs and groups that can assist you and your family to make the changes you want to make. If you want to know more about these groups or about health risks, contact your local health department or the National Health Information Clearinghouse. There’s a lot you can do to stay healthy or to improve your health—and there are organizations that can help you. Start a new “health-style” today! For assistance in locating specific information on these and other health topics, write to the National Health Information Clearinghouse:
• Community approach.

Preventative medical approaches to health promotion
• A preventative medical approach to health promotion has as its primary focus the prevention of ill health and disease rather than prioritizing the promotion of positive health and well-being.
• In working to achieve this, a preventative medical approach does the following:
• addresses physiological risk factors;
• uses clinical interventions to prevent disease;
• tends to be expert-led, i.e. initiated and led by professionals rather than by the patient.
Typical interventions are those that target whole populations or which are focused on high risk target groups, e.g. immunization and screening programmes. As such, interventions tend to be based on and driven by epidemiological evidence and are usually target-driven. For example, the annual influenza immunization campaigns are based on epidemiological data and target certain groups such as those over 65 years, and those in particular clinical risk groups.
Behavioral approaches to health promotion
behavioral approaches to health promotion are based on a recognition of the impact that people’s lifestyle and behavior have on their health.
Health promotion interventions based on this perspective do the following:
1. Seek to change people’s behavior and encourage the adoption of healthier lifestyles and therefore prevent ill health;
2. Promote positive health and well-being;
3. May target whole populations through health education messages such as quit smoking or at risk groups.
4. The focus of behavioural approaches to health promotion may be:
Educational – giving people accurate information about the impact of their behaviour on their health so that they are able to make informed choices about their lifestyle, e.g. nutritional information about what is required to ensure a healthy diet.
To develop the skills and strategies that people require to implement and sustain changes in their lifestyle, e.g., cooking skills and strategies to develop menu options that appeal to all family members.


- Sociocultural system.
- Physical – biological environment.