Nursing Care of the Postmenopausal Woman, 3rd Edition
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Primary Primary prevention encompasses the actions a person takes to keep themselves healthy. These actions involve preventing disease before its biological onset. Exam- ples of primary prevention include main- taining a healthy weight, exercising, not smoking, and eating a healthy diet. They also include preventing environmental exposure to disease, improving resis- tance to disease, obtaining education to decrease risk-taking behaviors, and get- ting vaccinations, all of which help to pre- vent a disease from beginning (Kisling & Secondary prevention is the early di- agnosis and treatment of a disease state before it results in significant morbidity. In many cases, a diagnosis is made before the person notices any symptoms. An ex- ample of secondary prevention is cervical cancer screenings. A woman presents to her care provider at regular intervals for her Pap test. She may have no symptoms, but she knows that if cervical irregularities are found early and treated, the irregular- ities should not progress to cervical can- cer. If cervical cancer is found, she should have a better outcome than if she were diagnosed at a later stage. Another ex- ample is when a woman with a significant family history of diabetes has a fasting blood glucose level drawn to test for dia- betes. If the test for the glucose level re- turns an abnormal result, additional tests can be performed; the woman can then be monitored and, if necessary, treated for diabetes (Kisling & Das, 2022.). Das, 2022). Secondary
Tertiary Tertiary prevention is the consistent treatment of a disease in an attempt to stop it from progressing and causing se- vere complications. For example, once a woman is diagnosed with diabetes, she needs to consistently follow the treat- ment regimen, which may include in- sulin, diet, exercise, and periodic office visits to check for foot, retinal, and other problems. A woman who has been diag- nosed with cardiovascular disease (CVD) may watch her diet, exercise regularly, and take a statin medication to lower her cholesterol to prevent a heart attack from occurring (Kisling & Das, 2022.). Quaternary Quaternary prevention is a type of pre- vention that seeks to identify individuals who are at risk of overmedicalization, polypharmacy, and overall medical inva- sions. Elderly women can be especially vulnerable to this. Another way to define this type of prevention is to help prevent a person from receiving medical interven- tions that instead of bringing benefit are more likely to cause harm (Kisling & Das, 2022; Martins et al., 2018). | NURSING CONSIDERATION Preventive services are an essential aspect of healthcare; however, they are consistently underutilized in the U.S. (Chung et al., 2018). Due to various constraints on the healthcare system and in provider practices, many preventive services get overlooked. Nurses must therefore remain up to date on prevention guidelines and ensure all patients are offered appropriate services, using shared decision making to promote patient- centered care.
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