Activity 7: Home Safety Assessment
It is important to identify health issues or concerns that may impact an individual or family in any setting. This identification can help the case management nurse address health promotion and disease prevention. To complete this activity, you must complete the Family Support Assessment activity. Click on Enter Sentinel City®. Once in the city, click on the map to locate the apartment in Nightingale Square. Once you enter the room, the Family Support Assessment form will be available. Complete the Family Support Assessment by asking the client predetermined questions. When the form is complete, you can save it to your computer files for the Family Support Assessment assignment, then click “submit” to submit the form. Now, you will complete the Home Safety Assessment by noting any health, safety, and environmental hazards in the apartment. Note as many of the hazards that you observe. Select and prioritize the top two hazards for health, safety, and environmental areas for a total of six hazards that the healthcare professional should address first:
Most serious hazard-life threatening
The second most important hazard affects the most people or causes long-term injury
Try to avoid prioritizing the same hazard in multiple categories. Provide an evidence-based rationale and a recommendation for addressing the top two hazards in each category. Click the “Family Support Assessment” tab at the top of the screen and review the information on the form.
Activity 7: Home Safety Assessment
Home Safety Assessment:
When I first stepped into the apartment in Nightingale Square, one of Sentinel City’s neighborhoods, I observed several health, security, and threats to the environment that put the residents or citizens at risk for suffering from chronic illness, accidents, and occasionally even death. The nurses would have been equipped with the tools to approach disease prevention and health maintenance in accordance if they could identify the health problems that might affect family members or individuals in residential areas. The risk of injuries, chronic medical conditions, and mortality among the residents or citizens would consequently be greatly reduced as a result of nurse’s consideration, prioritization, and recommendations of the possible remedies to the hazards or threats.
Health, Safety, and Environmental Hazards in the Home:
When I visited the apartment, I became aware of numerous safety risks, including dangerous chemicals within reach of young children, including cleaning products, pharmaceutical containers alcohol, and cigarette products. A toddler was enjoying a prescription bottle while his mother watched him, which only served to exacerbate the problem. In the ashtrays that were placed close to the curtains of the window, there were a lot of lighted cigarettes that had been discarded. There was always a chance that the curtains might catch fire, endangering everyone within the apartment as well as the surrounding buildings.
The unsafe practice of indoor smoking, while the children are at home, will expose them to second-hand smoke. This is one of my health considerations. Additionally, food items were kept in close enough proximity to the youngsters, unprotected and unrefrigerated (Gutman et al. 2018, p.46). The contamination by microorganisms, viruses, chemicals, or parasites, might induce foodborne disease or illness in the entire extended family. The environmental consequences that I observed included some furniture specifically old stools and chairs all of which were flipped upside down on the staircase with no obvious pedestrian walkways into the apartment. Children and senior citizens are at risk of falling and suffering serious injuries or even death. Additionally, I spotted stagnant water on the floors or sidewalks which might also lead to residents falling and getting injured.
Evidence-Based Rationale and a Recommendation for Addressing Each Identified Hazard:
Tobacco, household cleaners, and other harmful compounds are everywhere including containers for prescribed medication. Children who have been exposed to it and breathe in hazardous household cleaners experience internal burns, vomiting, and diarrhea. If the individual consumes the agents in larger quantities then they may also experience drowsiness or perhaps even die. Childhood exposure to hazardous substances is a key factor in both children’s and adults’ sickness and functional impairment. Additionally, they discovered that eliminating lead from gasoline, which is one of the most hazardous and toxic compounds lowered negative health consequences by 90 percent. The following parameters from the Centres of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are provided regarding the storage and usage of the chemicals prescribed medicines that are beyond the children’s range (Wolffe et al. 2019, p130). However, if they are regular medications, then one should maintain the area in which they are stored well and make sure that the children or youngsters are instructed about medical safety, which includes teaching or instructing them that prescription drugs should only be administered by adults following a physician’s or doctor’s suggestion.
Furthermore, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one should be aware of any authorized and illegal substances that visitors might bring into their home and encourage them to store them out of access to children or youngsters. Always avoid referring to prescribed medications or medicines as candy to youngsters since kids might misinterpret them as chocolates and sweets and start taking them whenever the adult or parents are not looking. Cigarettes that have been lit and left in the ashtrays, might also cause a house fire. Exclusively in Sweden, studies have demonstrated that tobacco consumption or smoking cigarettes is the primary cause of almost 30 percent of deadly house fires. In residential apartments, lighted cigarettes can catch fire if children pick them up and engage or start playing with them. This could also cause drapes and mattresses to catch fire which can begin gasoline or electrical fire inside the building that subsequently spreads to the nearby neighborhoods. It is advised that people have to keep smoking products out of the range of children or youngsters, avoid smoking inside the home, and also ensure that there are no lighted cigarettes still present before returning to the indoor spaces.
One of the health risks involves smoking indoors while kids or youngsters are present inside the home. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) asserts that second-hand smoke from indoor smoking is typically detrimental or harmful for children and adults who do not smoke. Moreover, there are seven thousand (7000) compounds in tobacco or cigarette smoking which include hundreds of toxins and around seventy (70) carcinogens. Numerous illnesses or diseases, including many dangerous ones, are more likely to be acquired due to tobacco use (Wolffe et al. 2019, p130). Infectious diseases of the middle ear, poor lung progression, frequent and more severe attacks, respiratory conditions, and sudden infant mortality syndrome are all becoming more prevalent among children. It is advised that individuals refrain from smoking at home.
Children should not have access to exposed unrefrigerated food items. Foodborne illness may arise if youngsters use dirty or unwashed hands to handle uncleaned food products left out in the kitchen and about 2 hours before fragile foodstuffs are placed in the refrigerator. Bacteria, infectious agents, spores, chemicals, parasites, and allergies would be bred on unclean or polluted surfaces in the home, which would be the source of foodborne diseases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in six Americans gets sick annually which results in 129,000 out of 50 million people being admitted to the hospital and around 5,000 people passing away from disease or illness which is associated with foodborne illness. The CDC also recommends that to avoid food contamination, perishable food products should be stored in refrigerators at a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, and any leftover foodstuffs should be placed in the fridge within 2 hours of preparation.
The suggestions include that the furniture should indeed be permanently removed from and managed to keep in the store to create a broader walking pathway or route to minimize injuries and also fall-related injuries, particularly for children and pregnant women which result from environmental obstacles like furniture positioned upside down on the staircase that leads to no definite walking ways and stagnant water on the floors in the buildings that could be resulting in the unexpected fall as well as injuries. To avoid injuries from a sudden fall and other risks associated with stepping on a wet surface, make ensure that the stagnant water is cleaned from the floor.
References
Gutman, S. A., Amarantos, K., Berg, J., Aponte, M., Gordillo, D., Rice, C., … & Schluger, Z. (2018). Home safety fall and accident risk among prematurely aging, formerly homeless adults. The American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 72(4), 7204195030p1-7204195030p9.
Wolffe, T. A., Whaley, P., Halsall, C., Rooney, A. A., & Walker, V. R. (2019). Systematic evidence maps as a novel tool to support evidence-based decision-making in chemical policy and risk management. Environment International, 130, 104871.
