The Health-Illness Spectrum in Patient Care

The Health-Illness Spectrum in Patient Care
Student's Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course Code and Title
Professor's Name
Due Date
The Health-Illness Spectrum in Patient Care
The health-illness continuum is relevant to patient care and individuals' wellness and health. Understanding the health-illness perspective helps nurses to enhance patients' health, value, and dignity and serve them in a human flourishing and better patient experience during care delivery while aligning with a Christian worldview. This research aims to enlighten nurses on the benefits of individualized care and the health-illness continuum in care delivery.
The health-illness spectrum is an ongoing process that shows different illnesses and health statuses since people have varying levels of wellness or sickness. Nurses must review patients’ health-illness continuum during nursing interventions due to its insights and advantages. They should coordinate with other healthcare workers to help patients move to higher well-being levels beyond the neutrality point of the spectrum (Kishan, 2020). In addition, they should continue to treat and monitor ill patients instead of stopping at the neutral level. Kishan (2020) emphasized the health-illness continuum’s significance of reviewing the whole patient while considering varying aspects, such as their beliefs, values, emotions, thoughts, and norms. Therefore, the health-illness continuum is relevant to nurses during patient care due to its multiple benefits and roles, which promote patients' dignity, value, experience, and flourishing.
The health-illness model informs nurses of their patient's progress or changes because it indicates their well-being and health, which deteriorates as the patients move down from the spectrum's center and improves as they move up from its center (Kishan, 2020). Furthermore, it guides nurses on how patients can attain a neutral point when using specific treatment interventions, including drug therapy, behavioral, or psychotherapy, to alleviate their symptoms and improve their experience. Kishan (2020) further highlighted the health-illness continuum's relevance to nurses because it offers guidance on incorporating other treatment strategies that enable patients to move to higher wellness levels. Additionally, the spectrum directs nurses to adopt a holistic approach to optimal health and well-being as they consider multiple factors, such as the patient's physical body and social, spiritual, and emotional aspects.
Nurses should thoroughly understand the health-illness continuum to promote people’s values and dignity, provide nursing care that enhances human flourishing, and ensure consistency with a Christian perspective. The health-illness spectrum enhances human flourishing by enabling nurses to provide patient-centered, whole-person, and holistic care (Pfeiffer, 2018). Such care focuses on patients' whole aspects, such as physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional, enhancing patients' dignity and value (Kishan, 2020). Nurses also ensure optimal...