Human Experience Across the Health-Illness Continuum

Human Experience in Health-Illness Continuum
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Understanding the relationship between the health-illness continuum and the provision of care is essential for any healthcare professional. It allows him to better grasp the natural tendency of individuals to experience various health changes in life and plan for a holistic treatment that maximizes each of these stages. In this paper, I would like to focus on the role of the nursing practitioner in the provision of care concerning the health-illness continuum. This includes some of the things that should be taken into consideration, whether for providing individual care or advocating for long-term changes in society. All in all, I believe that the health-illness continuum should serve as a starting point for any nursing practitioner in deciding how to approach his practice.
 
The Health-Illness Continuum
The health-illness continuum simply states that during the life of the individual, he will experience a variety of changes or circumstances in his life, wherein he would move from a state of normal health towards either end of the continuum, which symbolizes excellent health and illness and death on either side (Moreira, Kritski, & Carvalho, 2020). Accordingly, this continuum does not exist within a vacuum but is somewhat influenced by various internal and external circumstances such as the patient's personality, external environment, and even financial capacity.
In line with this, I believe that the health-illness continuum provides a good starting point for any nursing professional in his practice. On the one hand, it serves as a good reminder about the human condition, particularly our tendency to become afflicted with illnesses influenced by our circumstances in life. One good example of this is the proven relationship between obesity and poverty because of financial constraints on impoverished individuals in urban areas in the United States (Mazidi & Speakman, 2017). Since the health-illness continuum shows how humans could move from excellent health to illnesses because of external factors, it also serves as a reminder for any healthcare professional to provide holistic care for these individuals.
On the other hand, I also believe that knowing about the health-illness continuum is essential for caring for one's patients because it helps create a proactive approach to care. One of the common misconceptions about healthcare is that it is 'reactive' or 'palliative' in nature. In other words, people believe that the significant bulk of healthcare-related efforts should be dedicated to treating an individual's underlying symptoms and diseases. However, with the presence of the continuum, healthcare professionals are reminded that even individuals wh...