Benchmark – Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum
Benchmark – Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum
(Benchmark – Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum)
Introduction
An individual’s health state changes continually across the various stages of the health-illness continuum. Individuals move back and forth between illness and health, and it is rare to find an individual in a constant state of either illness or health. The health-illness continuum depicts this process of continual change, in which people experience different states of health and illness, extending from extremely good health to death. Individuals are expected to adapt to the changes in health and learn from states of illness to maintain good health and well-being. Noticeably, people’s adaptation to the changes rather than the change in the state itself impacts their health. A state of wellness is a successful adaptation and effective functioning, even for those experiencing chronic diseases. (Benchmark – Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum)
The Health-Illness Continuum
Nurses adopt the health or illness-wellness continuum to educate patients, demonstrating associations between treatment and wellness elements. The continuum illustrates the path or approaches to a better, healthier life. By incorporating mental and emotional health, this tool shows that well-being is more than merely an absence of a disease or illness. The associations between treatment and wellness paradigms meet at a neutral point on the health-illness continuum diagram (Kishan, 2020). The far left of the diagram represents pre-mature death, and as a person moves from the left, they come to a neutral point, leaving the treatment process and moving into wellness, where high-level wellness is at the far right. This perspective is a fundamental consideration when caring for patients because it allows providers to elaborate on their journey to better health and educate on what should be done to create and maintain a healthy lifestyle and achieve optimal health (Lothes II, 2020). The continuum stresses the need for providers to educate and help patients move further to the left toward high-level wellness. (Benchmark – Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum)
The Health-Illness Continuum’s Consistence with the Christian Worldview
In most instances, the typical health system ends at the neutral point, where patients have completed the treatment process and are discharged or achieved a healthy state. However, according to the health-illness continuum, the neutral point is not the endpoint, and healthcare providers should strive to increase awareness, educate patients, and encourage growth toward high-level wellness or optimal health (Wickramarathne et al., 2020). Helping people live a better, healthier life and achieve optimal health income promotes their value and dignity because, according to the Christian Worldview, healthcare providers are caring elements that should demonstrate love and compassion (Ramírez Jiménez & Serra Desfilis, 2020). Offering healthcare reflects the love of God, and adopting the health-illness continuum facilitates efforts to alleviate human suffering, cure disease, grow knowledge through patient education, and extend care beyond illness states. This continuum encourages providers to help patients achieve positive changes in their lifestyle to move to the right of the continuum and live better, healthier lives. (Benchmark – Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum)
Reflection
My overall health is good as I aspire and strive to achieve high-level wellness and live a healthier life. I understand that maintaining optimal health is a personal responsibility, and I fulfill this responsibility by maintaining a healthy diet, engaging in regular physical activity, getting physical examinations regularly, avoiding substance abuse, tobacco, and heavy alcohol consumption, monitoring my body mass index, blood pressure, cholesterol level, and blood glucose level. However, I have not achieved high-level wellness, implying that I need to improve and change some behavior that detracts me from health and well-being, including excessive social media consumption, slacking on sleep, and engaging in negative thinking patterns. Generally, my physical health is good, but I need to improve my mental health to achieve high-level wellness. I fall in the growth state on the health-illness continuum, moving towards high-level wellness. (Benchmark – Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum)
Options and Resources to help achieve High-level Wellness
The greatest resource available to help me move towards wellness includes my nursing knowledge. I have an in-depth understanding of health and well-being, factors affecting health and well-being, behaviors, tools, and options to achieve high-level wellness. Besides sharing this knowledge with patients, I also incorporate it in promoting my health and well-being. Other resources include colleagues at the workplace and family and friends. I can inquire about my health and well-being from my colleagues, who also have comprehensive knowledge about the body and how to achieve optimal health. Friends and family offer social and emotional support on this path to achieving high-level wellness, and I trust them to offer help when I need it. I also have facilities like the community gym, grocery stores selling organic food, my therapist helping with mental health, and infrastructures like bicycle pathways and running trucks to help achieve the optimal physical activity. (Benchmark – Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum)
Conclusion
The health-illness continuum is a graphical tool suitable for healthcare practice, particularly patient education, indicating where an individual is across the various states of health and illness. Individuals can also adopt the tool to guide their path toward better, healthier lives. It offers insights into what point of health or illness an individual is in and prompts decisions regarding behavioral changes to achieve optimal health outcomes. Resources and options to promote wellness are multiple, from our knowledge, people around us, evidence-based publications on the internet, infrastructure like gyms and public parks, and the availability of grocery stores that sell healthy, organic foods. (Benchmark – Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum)
References
Kishan P. (2020). Yoga and Spirituality in Mental Health: Illness to Wellness. Indian journal of psychological medicine, 42(5), 411–420. https://doi.org/10.1177/0253717620946995
Lothes II, J. (2020). Teaching wellness in a college physical education course: Pre/post outcomes over the semester. Building Healthy Academic Communities Journal, 4(1), 28-47.
Ramírez Jiménez, M. S., & Serra Desfilis, E. (2020). Does Christian Spirituality Enhance Psychological Interventions on Forgiveness, Gratitude, and the Meaning of Life? A Quasi-Experimental Intervention with the Elderly and Youth. Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy), 10(2), 182–206. https://doi.org/10.3390/nursrep10020022
Wickramarathne, P. C., Phuoc, J. C., & Albattat, A. R. S. (2020). A review of Wellness Dimension models: For the advancement of the Society. European Journal of Social Sciences Studies.
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