NURS 340 Week 2 Case Study: Public Health Nursing—Present, Past, and Future

NURS 340-A Public Health Nursing All Week Assignments

NURS 340 Week 2 Case Study: Public Health Nursing—Present, Past, and Future

NURS 340 Week 2 Case Study: Public Health Nursing

URS 340 Week 2 Case Study: Public Health Nursing—Present, Past, and Future

Click on the Case Study: Public Health Nursing – Present, Past, and Future assignment link to preview your assignment that is due Week 2.

Introduction

This is the case of a young female with serious medical problems; besides alcohol, smoking and drugs are used. Health screening and medical examinations, and various psychosocial assessments would guide the healthcare provider to treatment priorities, and planning for continuous treatment as the recovery proceeds.

What kind of data can you gather based on available client information?

At first this patient needs an explanation of the importance of psychosocial history. She needs to understand that substance use is not an isolated behavior but arises in response to, and affects, other actions. Health screening and medical examination are essential for this young woman. Understanding the level of addition of this young woman is vital for the appropriate medical diagnosis, case management and successful treatment. This information includes the screening and assessment procedures which benefits the patient by focusing on the most suitable treatment. Additionally, for this patient it is necessary to do the SIGECAPS questionnaire, which is a comprehensive assessment of sleep disorder, interest deficit, guilt, energy, concentration, appetite disorder, psychomotor retardation, and suicidal tendencies (Beaulac, Edwards, & Steele, 2017). In other words, this screening would reveal the specific problems and the assessment would give the nature of the specific problem, diagnosis and the particular treatments for the diagnosis. Data would also be obtained with the intervention of primary care screening, obstetrics and gynecology.

The data from physical examination would be: vital signs, nutrition or loss of 15 Lbs. in the past six months, head, eyes, ear, nose, throat (HEENT), neck, lymph nodes thorax and lung, abdomen, genitourinary, musculoskeletal, and neurological. We need to data on the HIV/AIDs status, history of hepatitis, tuberculosis, any other infectious diseases and gynecological problems, use of birth control, history of miscarriages, abortions (Carliner, Sarvet, Gordon, & Hasin, 2017). Additionally, data needs to be collected from any history of traumatic event and violence, and history of arrests.

What questions should you ask yourself while interviewing this client?

I would ask myself about the potential obstacles that this patient foresees; such as financial difficulties, housing problems, lack of transportation. Furthermore, I would ask myself what were the challenges that this woman had to face through her life and how she did she manage them. What is more, I would wonder if she eve NURS 340 Week 2 Case Study: Public Health Nursingr attempt to quit substances and smoking. If she ever identified strategies that worked, at least for a short time, for her habits. I would like to know if she has had any successes in any other areas of her life.

During planning, how can you, as the nurse, best assist this client?

The best approach to assist this patient is with a well-developed and effective nurse- patient support relationship. As a nurse I need to establish an environment of understanding and rapport with this patient. Lack of rapport would lead to poor outcomes and drop the patient’s trust in the nurse, jeopardizing the exchange of information (Osan & Chauhan, 2016). What is more, inadequate communication throughout the initial assessment could contribute to poor patient outcomes. Such impediment could compromise the patient’s ability to comprehend and follow a treatment plan. I would provide questions to allow the patient to express her concerns about changing her behaviors.  During the whole medical interview I would need to invest in the need for a therapeutic alliance with this patient.

What are the potential strategies that would assist the client to a “better” life?

This patient needs education in these behaviors that are putting her at high risk for contracting sexually transmitted diseases and other types of infections. Definitely, the main strategy to assist this patient is to improve her self-esteem by focusing on the identification of any strength that she has instead of fixing her deficits all at once (Knight, Fast, DeBeck, Shoveller, & Small, 2017). Then this patient would then need adequate support services. I would need to understand the cultural foundation of this patient’s health beliefs, and approach toward and acceptance of medical treatments. This patient is only 21-years old; therefore, it would be important to find out if she was diagnosed with any type of learning disability or failure to handle simple life management skills. This patient needs assistance from healthcare providers such as: nurse practitioner, physician, and social services. Social worker and case management would provide multiples avenues of programs for this young woman (Barringer, Hunter, Salina, & Jason, 2017).

NURS 340 Week 2 Case Study: Public Health Nursing References

Barringer, A., Hunter, B. A., Salina, D. D., & Jason, L. A. (2017). Empowerment and social support: Implications for practice and programming among minority women with substance abuse and criminal justice histories. Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research, 44(1), 75-88.

Beaulac, J., Edwards, J., & Steele, A. (2017). Formative evaluation of practice changes for managing depression within a shared care model in primary care. Primary Health Care Research and Development, 18(1), 50-63.

Carliner, H., Sarvet, A. L., Gordon, A. R., & Hasin, D. S. (2017). Gender discrimination, educational attainment, and illicit drug use among U.S. women. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 52(3), 279-289.

Knight, R., Fast, D., DeBeck, K., Shoveller, J., & Small, W. (2017). “Getting out of downtown”: A longitudinal study of how street-entrenched youth attempt to exit an inner city drug scene. BMC Public Health, 17(376). Retrieved from https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-017-4313-9.

Osan, N., & Chauhan, S. (2016). An exploratory study on correlates of depression in young adults. Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing, 7(9), 884-888.