Epidemiology and Community Health Nursing
Epidemiology and Community Health Nursing
Epidemiology
brings community health nursing a dynamic and exciting perspective. The process
of epidemiology adds methods of hypothesising a new problem-solving technique
to the nursing process for practice in the community.
Epidemiology
formulates new relationships and new association between nursing and public
health. In today's challenging and provocative times, epidemiology assists
nurses to meet changing community needs by nursing methods and tools that are
held in common with all members of the multidisciplinary team. This common
language improves inter-professional communication and trust. At the same time
the unique attributes of nursing as a profession can be maintained and
displayed within the framework of epidemiological methods and theory. The advantages
of using an epidemiological perspective for nursing are as follows.
1.
Epidemiology provides a framework within which basic science and behavioral
science can be used for community nursing practice.
2.
The nursing process extended through applications of epidemiological methods to
describe community needs and evaluate nursing services.
3.
Public health principle of family is the unit of society. Prevention and
control of disease and health promotion are activated and quantifies through an
epidemiological approach.
4.
Epidemiology provides an inter-disciplinary language to promote
inter professional communication and trust.
5.
An epidemiological perspective provides a method of extending the relationship
of family problems to community welfare.
6.
The epidemiological model promotes understanding the relationship between the
environment and agents that expose susceptible populations at risk of
impediments to health.
7.
Epidemiology provides time-honored method of quantifying nursing outcomes such
as recidivism. Lack of compliance and activities of daily living, to promote
and improve the quality of nursing care in the community.
Further
the study of the distributions of diseases and health related problems is not
adequate. The fundamental aim of epidemiology is to search for factors which
influence and determine the observed distributors. Illnesses in individuals are
often determined by a selective operation of one or more factors. Further, our
environment, and our blind destruction of it, is so complex that limiting our
investigation to individual illnesses may contribute very little to our efforts
to solve community health problems.
The
epidemiologist must examine a number of cases of similar diseases, or
health-related problems as they occur throughout the population, and
subsequently assist in identifying the operational factors in the afflicted
group of the population. Thus, the discovery of factors causing or contributing
to the occurrence of any particular disease or health problem is the most
important concern of epidemiology.
The
satisfactions of scientific curiosity will lead to a more complete
understanding of the occurrence of ill health. An increased understanding of
the epidemiological approach in turn, will enable the providers of health services
to plan, implement and assess effective measures of health promotion and the
prevention and control of diseases and disabilities.
The use of epidemiology helps the community health nurses in many ways because he/she is the person in the field who deals with the people in various settings. So, the epidemiology help community health nurses to identify and investigate the problems, formulatory alternative actions and implements the prevention and control of problem and also helps to evaluate the effectiveness of actions.
For example, nurses in the community have an active role in
prevention and control of communicable disease which includes participation in
early diagnosis and treatment, notification of certain specific diseases to the
health authority, tracing the contact, keeping them under surveillance,
identifying sources of injection and educating the people in genes. Hence, the
knowledge of epidemiology is essential for any nurse for her fruitful practice.
Uses
Of Epidemiology
Epidemiology
helps
1.
To study the effects of disease state in a population over a time and predict
future health needs Here epidemiologists study the history of the health of the
populations and the rise and fall of diseases and changes in their character
and predict the future health needs.
2.
To diagnose the health of the community Here the epidemiologists study the
conditions of the people; to measure the distribution and dimension of illness
in terms of incidence, prevalence, disability and mortality; to set health
problems in perspective and to define their relative importance; and to
identify groups needing special attention. New methods of monitoring must be
constantly sought after. In short it helps in diagnosing the health status of
the community.
3.
To evaluate health services Here epidemiologists study the working of health
services with a view to their improvement by evaluating the health care
services in the community. Operational research shows how community
expectations can result in the current provision of service. The success with
which the services achieve their stated goals and the effect on community
health have to be appraised in relation to resources. Action research can lead
to future plants for better services, eg planning efficient research including
drug trails and new methods of treatment.
4.
To estimate the individual risk from group experiences Here the work of an
epidemiologist is to estimate the risks of diseases, accident and defect, and
chances of avoiding them. So it studies the effects of disease state in
populations over a period of time and predicts the future health needs and
provides the basis for preventive measures and their evaluation and also helps
in logical planning of facilities for health care.
5.
To identify the syndrome Here, the epidemiologist helps to identify syndromes
by describing the distribution and association of clinical phenomena in the
population or helps in evolving and describing the natural history of disease.
6.
To complete the clinical picture of chronic diseases and describe their natural
history It provides complete clinical picture of disease, so the preventions
can be accomplished before disease becomes irreversible.
7.
To search for causes of health and disease This can be done by comparing
experience of that are clearly defined by their composition, inheritance,
experience, behavior and environments. So, epidemiology helps in understanding
the causation of dis ease and disability and providing data which helps to
explain an etiology of disease and local disease patterns which in turn helps
to test the hypothesis clinically or experimentally. The uses of epidemiology
encompass two main components:
The systematic collection of health data (including the utilization of data
collected for other purposes).
a.
Identification of health problems and assessment of priorities in allocations
of resources, including surveillance.
b.
Detection of new problems or changes in frequency of existing problems.
c. Identification of risk factors enabling efficient distribution of resources assigned to a particular problem.
d. Evaluation of effectiveness of control program and formulation of hypotheses regarding the reasons for non-random disease distribution (disease etiology).
ii.
The search for causes of ill health.
a.
Identification of alterable causes.
b.
Identification of susceptible groups for special surveillance.
c.
Identification of disease entities.
d.
Identification of early manifestations of disease or disease syndrome.
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