Question

Analyze and discuss the nurse's role in disease prevention related to Nutrition. List at least 1 example of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.

Answer 1

Nutrition is an important factor in health of the individual and it plays a critical role in the maintenance of good health, disease prevention and also recovery.

Nurses form the medium of contact between the clinician and the patients. So their role in the prevention of diseases is very important. As it is imperative that the nutrition is very important and not many people have the required knowledge about nutrition. So it falls under the responsibility of nurses to teach them about it. It’s been a topic of concern that nurses recently aren’t paying attention to nutrition. The reasons maybe due to work load or shortage of nurses etc. As all the nurses will have knowledge regarding the nutrition, they have to suggest the diet and nutrition to the patients.

They can help the patients by teaching them about the balanced diet, it’s uses and how to follow one. They can also help them make a personalised diet plan or make one for them based on their age and general health condition. Suggesting them immunity boosting foods and appropriate diet plan for people like diabetes patients etc is one of them. They should also educate them regarding food borne diseases, risk of consumption of contaminated and improperly cooked food and beverages. They should also educate them about how to properly cook food and make safe drinking water. After the patient falls sick then the role of nurses in the nutrition becomes further more important as they have to deal with parental and other forms of nutrition given to the patient and monitor it.

There are three levels of prevention of disease. They are primary, secondary and tertiary

1) Primary prevention is the prevention before the disease sets in or injury occurs. Examples of primary prevention of disease are immunisation, regular exercise, having healthy diet, staying away from unhealthy addictions etc.

2) Secondary prevention focuses on early screening, diagnosis and prevention of further progression of disease by prompt treatment. Examples of secondary prevention of disease are timely medical checkups, disease screening programs like mammograms, blood glucose levels and blood pressure etc.

3)Tertiary prevention focuses on reducing the disease severity, complications and rehabilitation. Examples of tertiary prevention of disease are stroke rehabilitation, cardiac rehabilitation, speech therapy after cerebro vascular accidents, chronic disease management programs etc.

This is a brief discussion on the role of nurses in prevention of diseases related to nutrition and stages of prevention of diseases. Hope this helps you. Please give your feedback and contact if you need further information regarding this topic. Thank you and have a great day.