NURS 4210 Week 2 Practicum Assignment – Define Your Population and Selected Problem
I live in Marietta, Ohio. There were no facts specific to Marietta, but there were to Ohio and Akron, Ohio, which is a little less than 2 hours from Marietta. In the state of Ohio, there were 5,630 cases of Tuberculosis from 1993-2016 and 241 cases in Akron, Ohio, during that timeframe (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). The United States had 360,287 cases between 1993-2016 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). Debbie is working at a local health department and has noticed several young Hispanic males diagnosed with Tuberculosis recently. After doing some research, she tracked them down to a group of migrant farm workers. These are the next steps that Debbie should take to control the tuberculosis outbreak.
Nurses are mandatory reporters, so Debbie needs to report her findings to the state health department. Debbie’s first goal is to prevent the spread of Tuberculosis to anyone else. A disease such as Tuberculosis could quickly become an epidemic if it is not contained and dealt with appropriately. When dealing with infectious diseases, there are three levels of prevention; primary, secondary, and tertiary (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2016).
Primary prevention aims to educate and prevent the spread of the disease. Debbie needs to educate those that live with people that tested positive about the signs and symptoms of Tuberculosis and how it is spread. Tuberculosis is a bacterium that is spread via the air by someone coughing or speaking that has active Tuberculosis (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). Debbie should educate the other workers that they need to keep their distance from those that tested positive and that Tuberculosis is not spread by touching an infected person, kissing them, or eating and drinking after them (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016).
NURS 4210 Week 2 Practicum Assignment – Define Your Population and Selected Problem
Secondary prevention aims at increasing the chance that the disease can be caught early and treatment will be more effective (Stanhope & Lancaster, 2016). Debbie should have all the workers tested for Tuberculosis. There are two different tests available, a skin test and a blood test. Once the workers are tested, they should come back regularly, even if they tested negative, so that she can monitor them. Signs and symptoms of Tuberculosis are a bad cough, chest pain, coughing up blood, weakness, weight loss, sweating at night, fever, and chills (Ohio Department of Health, 2018). She should explain to the workers to return if they experience any of these symptoms.
Tertiary prevention measures focus on the treatment of the disease. Those that tested positive for Tuberculosis should begin the treatment process. There are five first-line drugs used to treat latent and active Tuberculosis, Isoniazid, Rifampicin, Pyrazinamide, Ethambutol, and Streptomycin (TB Facts, 2018). These drugs must never be taken alone to treat Tuberculosis, or the person may become resistant to that drug, and the Tuberculosis will not be treated (TB Facts, 2018).
My community and state have a low number of tuberculosis cases but the same interventions that Debbie put in place; I would put in place in my community. There are no differences between Debbie’s community to mine, except we do not have very many minorities or migrant workers. Preventing the spread of Tuberculosis is vital in a situation such as Debbie’s and following the proper steps is crucial to being compliant to the laws in place for reporting such diseases.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2017). CDC Wonder: OTIS TB Database 1993- 2016 request. Retrieved from https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest/D135.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2016). Tuberculosis facts. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/tb/publications/factseries/exposure_eng.htm
Ohio Department of Health. (2018). Tuberculosis. Retrieved from https://www.odh.ohio.gov/odhprograms/bid/tcont/tcont1.aspx
Stanhope, M., & Lancaster, J. (2016). Public health nursing: Population-centered health care in the community (9th ed.). St. Louis, MO: Elseveir.
TB Facts. (2018). TB Drugs – Medication, TB medicine name, regimens, anti-tubercular drugs. Retrieved from https://www.tbfacts.org/tb-drugs/
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Question 
NURS 4210 Week 2 Practicum Assignment – Define Your Population and Selected Problem
This week, you will further refine your population and problem and compare your suspicions about
this problem to local, state, and national data on the topic. Your practicum project should come into
clear focus as you continue to analyze related health data, and you should consider how you, as the
nurse, might help them avoid development of the problem in the first place (primary prevention
measures).