Free «Tuberculosis (TB)» Essay Sample

Tuberculosis (TB) is a very serious condition, which results in high morbidity and mortality rates. Many people all over the world are reported to suffer from tuberculosis as it is easily spread and acquired. For this reason, all clinicians, including nurses, should know how to prevent the disease as well as control and cure it. Many guidelines are developed to help healthcare workers be aware of the situation. Here are some basics about tuberculosis and the way it is dealt with in nursing evidence-based practice.

In the early 1990s, according to National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (2013, p. 3), the rate of tuberculosis became higher than it was before due to the immigration from the countries where the disease was common. The problem made the officials and healthcare workers extremely concerned. Their attention resulted in developing many programs to educate the personnel.

Tuberculosis is an airborne disease. The source of contamination is a sick human being who coughs, sneezes, sighs, or speaks (Buford et al., 2012, p. 1). The air that this person breathes out is full of droplets of mucus that contains Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex. If another person inhales the air with these droplets, there are high chances that he or she will be infected, especially when the immunity of this person is weakened. Tuberculosis can be treated; however, in hard forms, it might result in patient’s death. The case becomes extremely difficult if a patient has multidrug-resistant TB (National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, 2013, p. 11). For this reason, nurses as primary healthcare providers should be aware of the condition and the ways of its prevention and control (Odendal, 2013).

Tuberculosis prevention belongs to the aspects of primary importance. Since the disease is extremely dangerous, nurses should do everything possible to stop it from spreading. The first and the most effective means is identification of risk groups and tuberculin skin testing (National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, 2013, pp. 13, 28). The second one used for unvaccinated population is timely diagnosis. In this case, there will be a possibility to identify the form of the condition and, in case of active tuberculosis, isolate the patient to avoid the contamination of other people and prescribe appropriate medication. Clearly, nurses should be well-educated to notice the symptoms and take the needed measures. Therefore, nursing evidence-based practice presupposes additional training for healthcare staff (Odendal, 2013).

Considerable attention should be paid to the health of people working in healthcare facilities (Odendal, 2013). If a nurse has some signs of the disease, he or she should be immediately isolated and properly tested. Working with a patient, a sick caregiver might worsen the situation transmitting the infection to healthy people or those who suffer from other conditions and have weakened immunity. In addition to that, nurses need to consider conditions they are working in. If a patient is diagnosed with TB, a proper environment should be created. Thus, nurses need to ensure ventilation in the healthcare facilities. In addition to this, one has to extra careful about personal hygiene (Odendal, 2013). Nurses are first healthcare workers to help people as they admit them to the hospital, make primary examination, and perform the majority of treatment procedures to the patients. For this reason, they need to inform people about the importance of personal hygiene and other needed interventions that help prevent tuberculosis.

In conclusion, tuberculosis is a serious airborne condition that causes high morbidity and mortality. Since the disease is easily spread and often hard to cure as some forms are resistant to medication, nurses as primary caregivers should strictly follow guidelines to protect people from it. Thus, they need to educate people in risk groups about the disease and preventive measures. Moreover, nurses are the first who usually notice the symptoms and diagnose tuberculosis. After medication is prescribed, they should create the environment that prevents the virus from spread. Clearly, nurses play an important role in tuberculosis prevention and treatment.