The health promotion concept has been used for many decades to grant people proper health. Health promotion is the process of enabling individuals to increase control of their health to improve their livelihood. In general, the concept of health promotion revolves around various activities, mostly aimed at decreasing the threats and dangers to health. The interventions referred to herein include various activities that facilitate health promotion. They include primary, secondary and tertiary levels of prevention (Christophersen, Finney & Friman, 2010).
Primary intervention aims at protecting healthy people from experiencing injuries or developing illnesses. It encompasses the provision of education on the importance of healthy living, such as regular exercises, good nutrition and so on. Additionally, it places emphasis on informing the public about the risks of substances, like alcohol, tobacco and other drugs in a bid to reduce the illnesses occasioned by the same.
Secondary intervention on the other hand, focuses on the incidences that have already transpired. This means that secondary intervention comes after diagnosis of a certain risk factor, with the major aim of slowing down its progress (Maynard, 2012). For instance, a person with the HIV virus can be encouraged to take drugs to slow down the effects of the virus.
The tertiary level for its part helps people to manage already complicated situations. This level, mostly applies to individuals with long-term health complications. Such conditions may include cancer, diabetes and heart diseases among others.
Purpose of Health Promotion
The three levels of health promotion play fundamental roles in the sustenance of human life. Nurses are in the forefront in the implementation of these intervention methods. Nursing is all about provision of quality health care services; hence, nurses have major roles in monitoring the implementation of the health promotion procedures.
One of the major functions of health promotion is the improvement of life quality among all people. Nurses undergo training that enables them to offer quality education, advice and recommendations that can be of great importance in ensuring that people, both the healthy and the ill have healthy lives (Melvin et al., 2011). Through health promotion, nurses help in the creation of awareness among people on the importance of healthy living and consumption of quality food. Such actions help in the improvement of people’s lifestyles.
Health promotion also helps in reduction of premature deaths. This comes through dissemination of knowledge regarding the risks associated with certain substances or lifestyles among the youths. It thus aims at discouraging certain irresponsible behaviors among the youths that can lead to premature deaths in the society.
Through focus on prevention, health promotion helps in reduction of the cost that families, individuals, companies, insurance, employers and the state among others would spend on the treatment of the affected persons.
How are Nursing Roles and Responsibilities Evolving in Health Promotion?
The nursing roles are fast evolving with the duties and responsibilities of nurses drawing through a wide spectrum of health activities. Caring for sick people has greatly evolved and become more complicated. In addition, hospitals have become understaffed and their budgets grown tighter (Maynard, 2012). The aging society, alongside the increasing rates of illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, among others, are a sign that the current health care system is dealing with complex illnesses. For this reason, today’s nursing fraternity not only cares for the sick, but also for the rest of the population that is vulnerable to chronic illnesses. Thus, the role of nurses is shifting from the hospital environment to the social and community settings, where they publish scientific research books, educate the society and involve in active address of health care policies. This makes them well suited in the provision of the primary, secondary and tertiary interventions in health promotion.
Explain the Implementation Methods for Health Promotion that Encompass all Areas of Nursing
The primary and secondary methods of health promotions are universal and encompass all the activities involved in current nursing practice. While the effects of a given disease or illness may be severe, putting in place measures to control it is likely to reduce the severity and vulnerability of the same. The primary methods of intervention focus on how to prevent more people from contracting these illnesses, while the secondary methods involve dealing with the current instances of infection (Melvin et al, 2011). The activities involved in these methods encompass all areas of nursing covered in the current social set up.
Compare the Three Levels of Health Promotion Prevention
The levels of health promotion prevention are the primary level, secondary level and the tertiary level. The primary level involves putting up measures to prevent people from contracting the illnesses. This feat is achieved through educating members of the public regarding the risks of leading reckless lifestyles. This method is effective despite many organizations ignoring its use.
The secondary level of prevention involves finding solutions to already existing cases of illnesses. Interventions herein involve taking care of the patients, giving them correct medication and advice that is relevant to their situations. The aim of secondary levels of prevention is to slow down the effects and rates of infection.
The tertiary level of prevention for its part, aims at dealing with chronic cases of illnesses. Often, the situation is already complicated, and the measures put in place targets to help the victim survive, and be relieved of the pain involved (Christophersen, Finney & Friman, 2010).
Most institutions largely concentrate their efforts on the secondary and tertiary levels of prevention, not knowing that preventive measures are paramount when seeking permanent solutions. The current nursing training takes into consideration all these levels, hence making prevention easy and the nurses very effective.
References
Christophersen, E. R., Finney, J. W., & Friman, P. C. (2010). Prevention in tertiary care. A journal of health promotion. 24(1), 23-30.
Maynard, M. (2012). Promoting Older Ethnic Minorities Health Behaviors: Primary And Secondary Prevention Considerations. The Journal of Primary Prevention, 17(2), 219-229.
Melvin, K., Wright, J., Connelly, J., Harrison, S., Robinson, M., & Williams, D. R. (2011). Promoting Effective Practice In Secondary levels of health promotion. Journal of Public Health, 26(3), 287-294.