NURS1101 : Nursing : Pneumonia as Faced by Residents of Nursing Homes

Answer:

The proposed evidence-based promotion class project focuses on infections such as UTI and pneumonia as faced by residents of nursing homes, leading to readmissions of this population to healthcare units. It has been noted that safety concerns arise when treatment is given to these patients in light of increased antibiotic resistance. The epidemiological that best supports the magnitude of the problem for the proposed evidence-based promotion class project is ‘endemic’.

Endemic refers to the occurrence of a disease is a certain population at a level that is not higher than the normal ‘expected’ level. An endemic disease implies that the disease is able to maintain itself in the population without cases arising and entering the certain population from outside region (Jani et al., 2017). In case of an endemic, the infection is dependent on the person-to-person transmission. Each individual who is infected with the disease is responsible for passing it to another person. When it is assumed that the population is completely susceptible, the basic reproduction number of the infection is equal to 1. In the population if some individuals are immune, the product of the basic reproduction number and the proportion of susceptible individuals in 1. This considers the probability of each individual to whom the disease might get transmitted is susceptible to it. The infection through such mechanism does not die out. The number of infected individuals does not increase in an exponential state (Ananthakrishnan et al., 2017).

Infections such as UTI and pneumonia are a concern in the chosen population that leads to severe health conditions and admission to the intensive unit. As an endemic, these infections are easily transmitted from one person to another, making the prevention process highly difficult. Challenges lie in early detection of the diseases too. When the prevalence of the diseases is subjected to fluctuations in time, the time with high prevalence can be noted as endemic. Public health concern is elementary since concern lies due to the increased morbidity as well as mortality. The treatment of the increased patient population is challenging and entails proper resource allocation within care units. The main cause of the endemic can be attributed to multi-drug resistant diseases that are highly resistant to antibiotics of the broad spectrum. Further, most of the infections are hospital acquired, making the control of infections highly difficult. Healthcare professionals are to be well trained for handling the varying needs of the population (Fos et al., 2018).

References:

Ananthakrishnan, A. N., Xavier, R. J., & Podolsky, D. K. (2017). Epidemiology and Pathogenesis. Inflammatory Bowel Diseases: A Clinician's Guide, 1-15.

Fos, P. J., Fine, D. J., & Zúniga, M. A. (2018). Managerial epidemiology for health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Jani, A. J., Knapp, R. A., & Briggs, C. J. (2017). Epidemic and endemic pathogen dynamics correspond to distinct host population microbiomes at a landscape scale. Proc. R. Soc. B, 284(1857), 20170944.