Nursing

Write a paper (2,000-2,500 words) in which you apply the concepts of epidemiology and nursing research to a communicable disease. Refer to “Communicable Disease Chain,” “Chain of Infection,” and the CDC website for assistance when completing this assignment.

Communicable Disease Selection

Chickenpox
Tuberculosis
Influenza
Mononucleosis
Hepatitis B
HIV
Ebola
Measles
Polio
Influenza
Epidemiology Paper Requirements

Describe the chosen communicable disease, including causes, symptoms, mode of transmission, complications, treatment, and the demographic of interest (mortality, morbidity, incidence, and prevalence). Is this a reportable disease? If so, provide details about reporting time, whom to report to, etc.
Describe the social determinants of health and explain how those factors contribute to the development of this disease.
Discuss the epidemiologic triangle as it relates to the communicable disease you have selected. Include the host factors, agent factors (presence or absence), and environmental factors. Are there any special considerations or notifications for the community, schools, or general population?
Explain the role of the community health nurse (case finding, reporting, data collection, data analysis, and follow-up) and why demographic data are necessary to the health of the community.
Identify at least one national agency or organization that addresses the communicable disease chosen and describe how the organizations contribute to resolving or reducing the impact of disease.
Discuss a global implication of the disease. How is this addressed in other countries or cultures? Is this disease endemic to a particular area? Provide an example.
A minimum of three peer-reviewed or professional references is required.

Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.

This assignment uses a rubric. Please review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.

ANSWER

 

Communicable Diseases: HIV/AIDs

 

Introduction

The emergence and development of new healthcare services target the increased incidence and prevalence of various diseases affecting the community’s more significant part. For the decades that have passed, managing patient’s conditions was barely a matter of attempts to alleviate the pain and improve their conditions while utilizing simple healthcare practices like wound dressing and provision of food and shelter to the injured people. With Florence Nightingale as the mother of nursing, she advocated for the improved standards of care to the injured patients and provided safety to their environment. Today, we have great expansion and innovation in the healthcare sector to help curb the increasing incidences and prevalence of multiple diseases. For instance, the invention has been motivated by the increased transmission rate of deadly diseases like HIV/AIDs, Measles, Ebola, Chickenpox, Influenza, Tuberculosis, and Polio, among other conditions (Kandola, 2020). The adverse effects of these diseases in the community have increased mortality rates among people in the community. Thus, the need for various stakeholders in healthcare to merge effort into curbing the conditions. Therefore, the detailed discussion reviews these conditions; HIV/AIDS, including its causative agents and the medium of transmission from the reservoir the host. Other aspects of the discussion include the epidemiological triangle concerning the disease and community health nurses and healthcare organizations’ role in curbing and managing patients with these adverse conditions. Moreover, the paper reviews the global implications of these conditions.

 

 

 

 

What is a communicable disease?

Kandola (2020) defines communicable diseases as any form of disease transmitted between people when they come into contact. They are sometimes referred to as infectious diseases, with their causative agents being a virus, bacteria, protists, and fungi. The route of transmission for communicable diseases is mainly through any or all of the following channels (Kandola, 2020);

• When they come into direct contact with the person carrying the pathogen (reservoir).
• When they come into contact with contaminated fluids like saliva, blood, and mucus.
• When they inhale contaminated droplets from the coughs of an infected person.
• When they consume contaminated food or water.

HIV/AIDs are considered one of the deadly diseases that consider most transmission routes from the mentioned transmission routes. The most common way of transmission for HIV/AIDs is through direct contact with the infected person and exposure to contaminated fluids like blood and saliva.

Symptoms of HIV/AIDs

The condition’s acute infectious stage begins with mild symptoms, including fever, chills, skin rash, headache, nausea, sore throat, swollen lymph nodes, upset stomach, general pains, and aches. Since these symptoms are similar to other flu conditions, the infected person might not think of seeking advanced medical attention and diagnosis (Pietrangelo, 2020). Symptoms of HIV/AIDs vary from person to person, but sometimes, they are similar to men and women. At an advanced stage, the symptoms become more distinguished and lead to rapid weight loss, recurrent fever, chronic fatigue, sores on the mouth, recurrent chronic diarrhea, neurological problems including trouble concentrating as well as anxiety and depression (Pietrangelo, 2020).

 

Mode of Transmission

Any person can contract the virus into the body. The typical way of transmission of the virus from one person to the other include (Pietrangelo, 2020);

• Having sexual intercourse with an infected person.
• Sharing needles and syringes with an infected person.
• Sharing unsterilized piercing tools like those for tattoos.
• During delivery, from mother to baby.
• Through breast milk.
• Through exposure to semen and blood of an infected person as well as vaginal and rectal fluids.
• It can also be transmitted through premastication.

Complications of HIV/AIDs

Once contracted the disease, the victim will start experiencing severe to chronic complications that may require quick medical attention. As Mayo Clinic (2020) illustrated, HIV/AIDs makes the victim’s immune weak and, thus, makes them vulnerable to other serious complications termed opportunistic diseases. Some common complications experienced with the victims include;

• Pneumocystis pneumonia. The most common cause of pneumonia for HIV patients.
• Tuberculosis. The leading cause of death among HIV patients.
• Cryptococcal meningitis.
• Cytomegalovirus. Herpes virus is transmitted through fluids.
• Candidiasis. A universal infection associated with HIV/AIDs that cause inflammation and white thickening of the tongue.

Treatment of HIV

Up to date, HIV treatment remains one of the problematic healthcare interventions while current interventions aiming at reducing pain among patients. There is no known cure for the treatment of the disease, but measures have been enacted to help prevent and manage pain among the patients. According to Pietrangelo (2020), treatment and management of HIV should be initiated as soon as possible, regardless of the viral load. The primary treatment of HIV is retroviral therapy, which is a combination of daily medications that inhibits replication of HIV in the body while attempting to maintain the number of CD4 counts as high as possible as well as trying to reduce the risk of transmitting the disease to other people (Pietrangelo, 2020). The medications are classified into six classes notably;

• Nucleosides Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors
• Non-nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors.
• Fusion Inhibitors.
• Protease Inhibitors.
• Integrase Strand Transfer Inhibitors.
• CCR5 Antagonists (entry inhibitors).

The United States Department of Health and Human Services recommends starting the treatment regime of three HIV medications from two drug classes. These could include combining Nucleosides Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors and Non-nucleoside Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors (Pietrangelo, 2020).

HIV infection incidence and prevalence continue to be a major global health pandemic that has affected many people’s lives. An estimated 38 million people in 2018 lived with HIV, with a worldwide prevalence of 0.8% among the adult population (Avert, 2020). HIV is a reportable disease, and thus, creating awareness to the younger and old population is a one-step mile towards reducing the incidence and prevalence in the global society.

Early detection and diagnosis of HIV patients are paramount to the victim’s health and the larger society. Healthcare providers are the primary people to report any incidence of the disease as they provide care and help manage patients with the conditions. The time of report should be immediately the disease has been detected or diagnosed (Avert, 2020).

Social Determinants of Health

Our health is greatly dependent on various factors that we interact with within our daily lives. Controlling what we consume and interact with is vital in addressing issues that might risk our lives from getting infected. Health begins from our homes, workplaces, school, and the community. Access to social and economic opportunities also determines the quality of our health. Therefore, understanding the social determinants of health forms the keys aspect of how the disease progression among individuals in the community. Examples of social determinants of health include but not limited to the following aspects;

• Available resources to address our daily demands like food and safe housing.
• Excellent education, job, and economic opportunities.
• Social support.
• Social attitudes and norms.
• Frequent exposure to violence and crime.
• Access to emerging technologies, including mass and social media.
• Residential segregation.

For instance, access to mass media is one of the leading causes of the increased incidence of HIV progression in contemporary societies. The larger social media consumers are the youths (18 – 35 years) who spend much of their time surfing and exchanging content over the internet. The increased rate of pornography among the youth has resulted in youth exposure to sexual behaviors, thus increasing the rate of transmission (Bhasin, 2019). Moreover, the youths are faced with various financial challenges in their lives as this tempts them to involve in sexual activities with the older population to satisfy their needs. The same leads to the transmission of the condition to the older population and diminishes immunity (Bhasin, 2019). Therefore, managing the transmission rate involves educating the mass on the importance of ensuring one’s own safety first before transiting to the larger population. The need to take care of oneself through abstinence is the primary key to avoiding various forms of contracting HIV.

Epidemiological Triangle

Critical analysis of the epidemiological triangle is the key measure and step of understanding the degree and transmission of HIV in the community. The epidemiological triangle is useful in understanding the three components of transmitting an infectious disease from one person to the other. These factors include an external agent, a vulnerable host, and the surrounding that merge the agent and host.

The three components of the triangle are vital in understanding HIV aids from one component to the other. The agent termed as the infectious pathogen must be present for the occurrence of HIV. However, their presence alone is not sufficient to cause a condition. Various factors influence whether exposure to the virus will lead to contracting HIV and include its virulence and addiction to the host (Center for Disease Control, 2020).

The host is infected with HIV depending on their average immune responses, greatly depending on their nutritional value. The behaviors exhibited by the host may also expose them to the agent of transmission, including involving frequent unprotected sexual intercourse. Moreover, the host’s immune response is also influenced by their bodies’ genetic makeup, as some people can remain asymptomatic. Yet, they have the virus while others cannot (Center for Disease Control, 2020). The last component is the environment where both the host and the agent lives and interact through various means. This forms the intrinsic factors that influence the agent and the chance for exposure and may include climate and geology. Other biological factors include socioeconomic factors like sanitation and health services (Center for Disease Control, 2020). This is further illustrated in the figure below;

Figure 1: Epidemiological Triangle for Infection Transmission. (Center for Disease Control, 2020)

The community, schools, and the general public should be informed of the means through which HIV has been transmitted from the reservoir to the host and the role of the environment in the transmission triangle. Creating awareness and educating children to practice good health practices is a measure to boost their average body immunity and remain vigilant and aware of the deadly HIV disease Center for Disease Control, 2020.

 

Roles of Community Health Nurses

Community health nurses perform a variety of roles, including creating awareness to the community regarding HIV testing, creating a link to the quality care for their loved ones, accompanying the people living with HIV to clinic appointments, offering psychological support as well as making referrals to another extensive service for the case of severely ill patients of HIV (Sunguya et al., 2015). Reliance on community health nurses increases as they are considered to promote adherence to treatment and medications for HIV patients. They provide services like supportive supervision, adequate supplies, and training, as well as reasonable workload. For instance, they help diagnose patients from where they retrieve data and compile reports regarding their patients, make an analysis of the reports, and eventually provide follow-up activities to the patients for the continued support of the victims to boost their immune response to the virus (Sunguya et al., 2015).

Collection of demographic data by community health nurses is vital. It provides a wider view of the population’s characteristics, which considers the age, gender, and income levels for each group. For instance, the provision of the victim’s age and gender establishes good baseline data to determine the incidence and prevalence for the specific population and thus design measures to mitigate the HIV infection (Sunguya et al., 2015).

One of the global organizations which address the issues of HIV in the world is the International AIDs Society that was established in 1988. It has members from over 180 nations of the world who collaborate to reduce the adverse implication of HIV in its associated states (“Global HIV/AIDS organizations,” 2019). The global roles of the IAS mainly aim at reducing the adverse implications of HIV in the world. This is achieved through either of the following measures and steps;

• Through the promotion of dialogue, networking, and education to the vulnerable population.
• Closing gaps in knowledge and expertise at all stages of the response.
• It also advances state of the art, expands access during impact mitigation.

The global implication of HIV hits every sector of production. These include but are not limited to the following global implications.

• The increased mortality rate among various age groups and thus leading to the reduced population in the world.
• Increased overdependence of families when their beloved dies of HIV.
• Reduced human resources in the sector of production due to stress and depression.
• Increased incidence of stigmatization among the victims due to isolation.
• Waste of resources in the cure and treatment of the virus.
• Increased stress and depression to the victims and their families as well.

Conclusively, the incidence and prevalence of HIV/AIDS affect the global population, and hence, the disease is a pandemic and not an endemic. Therefore, it is the roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders in health to ensure adequate measures in place to curb the spread of all communicable diseases. In the hospital environment, the nurse educators and infectious conditions nurses play vital roles in creating awareness through educating the physicians and the nurses in mitigating all forms of transmission of communicable diseases. The creation of awareness of this condition’s global adverse implications is the first step towards reducing the cases in contemporary society.

 

 

References

Avert. (2020, February 18). https://www.avert.org/global-hiv-and-aids-statistics

Aaron Kandola. (2020). Everything you need to know about communicable diseases. Retrieved from: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/communicable-diseases

Ann Pietrangelo. A Comprehensive Guide to HIV and AIDS. Retrieved from: retrieved from: https://www.healthline.com/health/hiv-aids

Global HIV/AIDS organizations. (2019, August 14). HIV.gov. https://www.hiv.gov/federal-response/pepfar-global-aids/global-hiv-aids-organizations

Hitesh Bhasin. (2019). Impact of Social Media on Youth: Positive & Negative Effects of Social Media. Retrieved from: https://www.marketing91.com/impact-of-social-media-on-youth/

HIV Symptoms. Retrieved from: https://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/understanding-aids-hiv-symptoms

https://www.nursing.upenn.edu/nhhc/american-nursing-an-introduction-to-the-past/

Impact of social media on youth – Positive & negative effects. (2019, October 18). Marketing91. https://www.marketing91.com/impact-of-social-media-on-youth/

Mayo Clinic. HIV/AIDs. Retrieved from: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hiv-aids/symptoms-causes/syc-20373524#:~:text=Other%20complications&text=Untreated%20HIV%20%2F%20AIDS%20can%20cause,depression%2C%20anxiety%20and%20difficulty%20walking.

Peter F. E, Ben Huang. (2020). Epidemiology of Prevention Of Communicable Diseases. Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK470303/

Principles of epidemiology | Lesson 1 – Section 8. (2020, May 11). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson1/section8.html

Social Determinants of Health. Retrieved from: https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/social-determinants-of-health

Sunguya, B. F., Urassa, D. P., Yasuoka, J., & Jimba, M. (2015). The role of nutrition training for health workers in addressing poor feeding practices and Undernutrition among HIV-positive children. Health of HIV Infected People, 113-130. https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-12-800767-9.00008-x