Introduction
The situation of full mental, physical and social well-being and not wholly deficiency of disease is known as health. An individual can either be in good or poor health, although good health is fundamental and recommended for everyone. All countries are striving for quality and affordable health care systems to ensure good health for their citizens. Donors are also working with the governments to support healthcare systems. Following Bloom et al. (2019), poor health diminishes labor force cooperation among women and prevents investments in education due to high fertility making the economy stagnant. The factors that promote health are personal such as diet, social such as culture, economic such as finances and, environmental factors, such as quality of the physical and social environment. For better health care, individuals need to carry out frequent assessments for their diets, exercise, job, and personal stress management. They also ought to evaluate the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and other illnesses, family history, and social support, self-esteem, sense of control and psychological issues and personal status.
Diet
Diet is crucial for determining the health of an individual. Both less and excess food has adverse effects on the body; excess food makes a person overweight leading to obesity, and less food increases the risk for diseases.
Assessment Measures
In determining the correct diet, dietary assessment methods are applied. Such include the assembling of data on foods and drinks utilized at a particular time which is digested and refined to rate absorption of energy, nutrients, and other dietary compounds using food composition tables (Dao et al., 2019). It can be a subjective report such as a dietary checklist, dietary history, and food frequency questionnaires, or objective observation, for instance, direct observation. Assessments tools used when carrying out these assessment methods are; screeners profiles, 24-hour dietary recall profiles, food record profiles, measure history, and dietary assessment calibration.
Personal Status and Recommended Personal Changes
Personally, my diet has been less healthy; I have been making poor choices such as taking fewer fruits rather than more concerning my diet. Moreover, I have not been using any dietary assessment tool. Therefore, I will choose the correct assessment tool to assist in making correct decisions regarding my diet.
Exercise
Exercise has a direct positive relationship with health; active physical activeness often improves the health of an individual. It helps to reduce the risk of contracting diseases such as diabetes and heart diseases.
Assessment Measures
Physical assessment methods used are; objective, for instance, heart rate monitoring and activity monitors, criteria such as indirect calorimetry and direct observation, and subjective methods such as questionnaires and activity diaries. It is a series of tests to determine and monitor individual physical fitness levels. Assessment tools are; a thermometer, ophthalmoscope, audio scope, penlight, examination light, and otoscope.
Personal Status and Recommended Personal Changes
I have been trying to exercise by doing morning runs, cycling every weekend, doing indoor physical activities such as donkey kicks, jogging, and swimming twice a month. Ever since I started, I feel I am more fit and can take long walks besides hiking with fewer difficultiesRecommendations for personal changes are trying the three assessment methods since I have been using the only objective by heart monitoring technique.
Job and Personal Stress Management
Stress occurs in almost every individual; it can be at the workplace or at home. People undergo stress for different reasons and manage it differently. If stress is left unmanaged it has adverse effects on the individual.
Assessment Measure
Over time, I have learned to use assessment methods to manage job and personal stress to avoid mental health issues such as depression and stroke. Assessment methods for the job and personal stress management are: maintaining a healthy lifestyle, time-management skills, physical exercise, relaxation techniques, time-management skills, and counseling or group therapy. The common assessment tool used in stress management is the perceived stress scale. I try doing regular physical exercises after work and talk to people as a method of counseling.
Personal Status and Recommended Personal Changes
Professionally, I am a nurse; in the workplace, there are several challenges. We meet and interact with different people with different personalities from diverse areas with different norms. Among the challenges, mental health is common due to stress caused by pressure at the workplace. We work nightshift and are sometimes forced to work overtime, requiring good mental health to perform effectively. Additionally, at home, there is personal stress due to different factors and changes that I aim to make including having good time management skills to schedule myself daily and finding the most appropriate relaxation techniques.
Risks Factors for Cardiovascular Disease
Recently, cardiovascular diseases are common compared to the past. According to Wong et al. (2019), sudden cardiac death (SCD) continues to be the dominant source of mortality and is accountable for relatively half of total deaths due to cardiovascular disease. The risk factors for cardiovascular diseases are lack of exercise, diabetes, and drug abuse such as smoking and alcohol, overweight, genetic inheritance, high blood pressure, ethnic background, high blood cholesterol, gender, age, and stress.
Assessment Measure
Physical examination through; auscultation, palpation, inspection and, percussion besides screening are the assessment methods for cardiovascular diseases. The assessment tools used are; auscultation of the heart, the jugular venous pulse, and auscultation for cervical venous hums. They also include carotid arterial pulse and auscultation for carotid bruit and the precordial impulses and palpation for heart sounds and murmurs.
Personal Status and Recommended Personal Changes
Earlier, I was addicted to drugs, both alcohol, and smoking, I fell sick, and on visits to the doctor, an assessment was done, and I was told about cardiovascular diseases. Upon awareness, I had to find a way of minimizing as a strategy to stop being an addict. Afterward, I did carry out frequent cardiovascular risk assessment methods to determine the risk factors and recommended more assessments.
Risks Factors For Cancer, Diabetes and Other Illnesses
Globally, high mortality rates are experienced due to chronic diseases such as respiratory disease, cancer, chronic kidney disease, and diabetes. In 2015, these chronic illnesses were accountable for 71% of death in the world (Tu et al., 2018). The risk factors associated with chronic diseases are: overweight, physical inactivity, drug abuse, raised blood glucose, unhealthy diet, hypertension, raised blood cholesterol, age, heredity, and obesity.
Assessment Measure
There are chronic models used in dealing with chronic diseases; the Stanford method, innovative care for chronic conditions, chronic care model, community-based transition model, and improving chronic illness care. Screening tools are used during an assessment, such as ultrasound and mammogram.
Personal Status and Recommended Personal Changes
As earlier mentioned, I have an unhealthy diet, and I will recommend a healthy diet to prevent the occurrence of chronic diseases.
Family History and Social Support
In my family, we have a history of chronic illness from our great grandparents. The common chronic illnesses are diabetes and cancer. My grandparents died due to both diseases; breast cancer and diabetes.
Assessment Measure
As family members, we were recommended to carry out screening on monthly disease and avoid the risk factors. We have supported each other financially, emotionally, and spiritually. The financial management of chronic diseases is expensive and requires immense support for the medication.
Personal Status and Recommended Personal Changes
In my nuclear family, my mum had breast cancer and was diagnosed when it was stage two. It rapidly grew to stage three and was recommended for surgery and chemotherapy. At stage four, it was established as metastatic cancer, and she developed other chronic diseases; hypertension and diabetes. Recommendations for myself are ensuring I carry out a risk assessment, avoiding the risk factors through regular exercise, preventing drug abuse, healthy diet, and ensuring healthy well-being.
Self Esteem along with Sense of Control and Other Psychological Issues
Self-esteem issues are common, especially for adolescents; they tend to have low self-esteem due to the changes in their bodies. Also, psychological issues occur in individuals due to situations and they tend to lack a sense of control.
Assessment Measure
In the assessment of self-esteem, self-report scales are used. The types of self-report scales are Marsh’s self-description questionnaire, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, harter self-perception profile, and the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory. The most common technique is the Rosenberg self-esteem scale; it has shown its accuracy and validity in Hispanic populations through different studies (Garcia et al., 2019).
Personal Status and Recommended Personal Changes
I have had low self-esteem since my teenage age and a low sense of control; I am high-tempered. Following Garcia et al. (2019), self-esteem can be defined as individual self-worth. My sense of control has been a challenge in dealing with people, and I have figured out ways of trying to control it. I have applied Marsh’s self-description questionnaire and would recommend attempting other tools as well.
Conclusion
The assessment measures are universal and can be used by everyone. Depending on the aim, appropriate assessment measures can be used; individuals can inquire from the specialists. In implementing these assessment measures, self-control is important and awareness in society of the importance of the assessment measures. For chronic illnesses, to prevent increasing mortality rates, assessment methods are appropriate. However, more research on assessment measures for chronic illnesses is recommended. Individuals should ensure they implement the assessment measures depending on their needs.
References
Bloom, D. E., Kuhn, M., & Prettner, K. (2019). Health and economic growth. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance. Web.
Dao, M. C., Subar, A. F., Warthon-Medina, M., Cade, J. E., Burrows, T., Golley, R. K.,… & Holmes, B. A. (2019). Dietary assessment toolkits: A overview. Public Health Nutrition, 22(3), 404-418.
GarcĂa, J. A., y Olmos, F. C., Matheu, M. L., & Carreño, T. P. (2019). Self-esteem levels vs global scores on the Rosenberg self-esteem scale. Heliyon, 5(3), e01378.
Huakang, T., Wen, C. P., Tsai, S. P., Chow, W., Wen, C. Ye, Y., Zhao, H., Tsai, M. K., Huang, M., Dinney, C. P., Tsao, C. K., & Wu, X. (2018). Cancer risk associated with chronic diseases and disease markers: Prospective cohort study. bmj, 360. 10.1136/bmj.k134
Wong, C. X., Brown, A., Lau, D. H., Chugh, S. S., Albert, C. M., Kalman, J. M., & Sanders, P. (2019). Epidemiology of sudden cardiac death: global and regional perspectives. Heart, Lung, and Circulation, 28(1), 6-14.