1. Choose one of the following issues: depression, drug addiction, workplace fatalities, or obesity. Describe a specific way that a community that has a high number of people with that issue could help fix this issue by using methods based on each of the following: primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention. [6%]
Primary care in general is provided by a nursing staff or a physician or an assistant. One is responsible for the maintenance of health and for treating the illness in patients or refers the patient to specialists if needed. Obesity is a growing concern in US and in every country today due to which the prevalence of a number of obesity- associated diseases are also increasing.
Therefore as a primary prevention step, it would be the duty of a physician/ nurse/ nurse assistant to educate the patients presenting with obesity or risks of developing associated disorders to first educate about the causes of obesity. This would help enhancing the awareness among the patient population and thereby help in encouraging them to take preventive measures (such as increasing physical activity, low consumption of fats/ junk food, improving lifestyle, eating healthy etc.). As a primary prevention approach, the nurses/ physicians/ assistants also teach the patients or the vulnerable population about the ill- effects of the diseases or warn them about the potentially injurious practices.
The secondary prevention method to treat obesity among the vulnerable population is first identifying the obese individuals and the individuals who are at risk of developing obesity by measuring their BMI in order to limit its development. This is done to pre- detect the pathological and clinical changes in order to control the disease progression. The pre- detection of obesity among the vulnerable population helps in prescribing drugs such as metformin and aerobic conditioning on a regular basis.
The tertiary prevention method is used for the one’s who are already obese and display signs symptoms of obesity such as end- organ disease. A number of strong medications in such cases are prescribed along with rigorous physical activity and healthy eating (i.e., increased intake of fruits and vegetables, and avoiding fast food or junk food). Alcohol restriction is also prescribed along with educating the patients to monitor their day- to- day calorie intake. Many are provided with counseling sessions or behavioral interventions to encourage them to lose weight.
2. Choose one of the following industries: real estate, medicine, fashion, financial services, or education. Describe TWO different workplace hazards that you believe employees in that industry are exposed to. For both hazards, also describe ONE biological, psychological, or social factor that contributes to the existence of that hazard in that industry. [4.5%]
Individuals working for the medicine or the healthcare industry are exposed to a number of workplace hazards. They are mostly exposed to occupational diseases or infections such as the parasitic diseases. This is acquired by an individual when exposed to an infectious occupational environment (for e.g., exposure to biological wastes, or discarded samples of microorganisms, or viruses or toxins). These biological factors can result in systemic infections in the victims. In most cases, it also becomes difficult to identify the actual problem of discomfort and factor leading to it.
Individuals working in the fashion industry as a fashion stylist is also at a risk of large number of hazards, which can harm them professionally if not physically. Fashion stylists are always in a high- stress environment. Thus tremendous stress in life can hamper their lifestyle by negatively influencing their professional reputation and relationship. This is as a result of stress developed due to high – demand work environment with excessive workload, which hugely influences their psychological state. Factors such as job security, meeting client’s expectations, and maintain confidentiality of the organization and clients widely influences the psychological state of a fashion worker .
3. Choose one of the following cognitive biases: social desirability bias, illusory correlations, or confirmation bias. Describe how that cognitive bias can lead to a doctor’s inaccurate diagnosis of a patient. In your response, it must be clear which person (the doctor or patient) is the one with the cognitive bias. [2.5%]
Social desirability consists of impression management i.e., consciously presenting or falsifying the test outcomes by creating a false front and self- deception i.e., willingly trying to project oneself in a positive light. These can have three different manifestations such as omitting actual data, reporting false data and altering the enormity of a data. In some cases, especially patients with obesity or diabetes are recommended to food and fluid restrictions to maintain their health status. However, it has been observed that some patients, mostly the older patients, tend to falsify their food habits by not disclosing their actual food intake to their physicians when asked. This cognitive bias of the patient hugely influences the diagnosis process of the doctor and thereby resulting in wrong diagnosis of a given issue in a patient. Thus, social desirability can be harmful to the patient himself as doctor’s diagnoses and prescribes based on the information provided by the patients .
EC1. Many people are do not think that needle exchange programs should exist. Describe ONE reason why someone would be opposed to needle exchange programs and ONE reason why someone would support these programs.
Needle exchange programs are supported by some because it prevents the risks of transmission of deadly diseases such as Hepatitis C and HIV. The spread of these diseases are high among the drug users who re-use the same syringes. Thus, in order to lower the risk of transmission of such diseases some support the cause.
Some people do not support this program because according to their beliefs such practices can lead to immoral and illicit behavior and drug abusers should be punished by the government in order to discourage them to use drugs and harm their own health.
Watch the documentary posted on Blackboard for this week and answer the following questions. It may be useful to keep notes while watching the documentary to reference specific things when providing your answers. This week’s documentary is about a typical day in a safety net hospital in a low-income area.
1. In the documentary, it is very clear that the hospital employees’ jobs are very difficult in many ways. Identify TWO different aspects of working at this hospital that you found to be difficult for these employees and and describe a reason for why you think these difficulties exist in the first place. [1% each]
One of the commonest difficulties of a hospital employee is excessive workload. The aging population is increasing with the passing time in every country. This is resulting in decrease in nursing staff and increase inpatient admissions. This is therefore resulting in excessive workload for hospital employees, owing to which they find it difficult to sustain their responsibilities.
The second issue is exposure to stressful environment. Hospital employees due to workforce shortage are over burdened with work thereby leading to a stress environment where they find it difficult to work as they get psychologically affected as they are unable to meet the quality standards of care process.
2. Identify one aspect of the hospital that you think requires improvement and do the following: (a) describe why this aspect requires improvement and (b) describe a way that you think it could be improved (i.e., what could be done to fix it?). [1.5% each]
Today, most of the organizations are facing a common problem of job burnout and this is a growing concern in every country.
This aspect of an organization needs to be properly dealt with. Job burnouts occur as a result of job dissatisfaction, stressful environment, cynicism, excessive workload, and emotional exhaustion among the staff. These factors highly influences the retention of workforce and also results in violence and aggression in workplace. Such issues can hamper the quality care process and the reputation of an organization
In order to deal with such a problem, it is important to first reduce the workload of the nursing staff and provide them with a healthy environment, where they are getting all facilities to calm their mind (eg, meditation or yoga classes) and incentives for their performance. These steps can effectively encourage the professionals to deliver the best possible care to patients and as well as ensure job satisfaction, thereby increasing the retention rates.
Each week you must find a news article published within the past two weeks that has some kind of relevance to that week’s lecture. The article does not have to apply to everything in that week, instead the article should be broad enough to answer questions below. The articles can can be about anything, ranging from current events, sports, and celebrities. These news articles must come from news websites (e.g., newspapers, CNN, Associated Press, etc.). If you have a question about if something qualifies, e-mail me, and I will let you know.
Provide a link to the news article below. [–0.5% if not provided]
https://www.nursingtimes.net/roles/nurse-managers/twelve-hour-shifts-burnout-or-job-satisfaction/7003416.article
1. Describe how ONE of the specific concepts discussed in the lecture (the bolded blue terms) applies to the article. [1%]
Job burnout and satisfaction is a growing concern globally. This news article discusses about 12- hour’s shifts for nurses, which is preferred by the nurses now- a- days, as it helps them balance between their professional and personal lives and also results in job satisfaction and retention. However, the negative effects of this work pattern on the nurses’ well being is yet unknown. This article explore whether this work pattern is associated with job burnouts, satisfaction and low rate of retention.
2. Choose ONE different specific concept discussed in the lecture that is not really focused on in the news article. How would discussion of that concept contribute to understanding of the events described in the article (such as why something happened or how it can help the people/situation described in the article)? [1%]
According to the lecture, job burnout occurs as a result of 3 components: emotional exhaustion, cynicism and reduced self- efficacy. All of these 3 factors occur as a result of excessive work pressure and little or no recognition. However, the article represents that working 3 twelve hour shifts a week can effectively minimize the workload of the nurses and guarantee psychological well being. Therefore, nurses who are in tremendous stress and are vulnerable to develop psychological issues (leading to violence and aggression) can be aided with the use of the idea presented by this news article. As the 12- hours shift thrice per week can help nurses relax and gain maximum work satisfaction as they get more time to spend with their family and friends .
References
Dall'Ora, C., Griffiths, P. Twelve-hour shifts: burnout or job satisfaction? 21 Mar 2016. <https://www.nursingtimes.net/roles/nurse-managers/twelve-hour-shifts-burnout-or-job-satisfaction/7003416.article>.
Mortel, T. “Faking it: social desirability response bias in selfreport.” Southern Cross University (2008).
Swain, K. Hazards of Being a Fashion Stylist. 2016. <http://work.chron.com/hazards-being-fashion-stylist-23223.html>.
