Asthma in Children Under Five Years Nursing Term Paper

Asthma in Children Under Five Years
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Introduction
Children under the age of five are at their most delicate stage in life. This is relative to the fact that they have underdeveloped immune systems that can easily be compromised. Some of the health conditions that the children will suffer from at this age will essentially be carried on to the older ages. This means that, it is crucial that the children are protected from development of any diseases, as they will likely suffer from the same when they grow up (Mayo Clinic, 2016). Where children are exposed to unclean air, such as smoky houses and neighborhoods at this age, they are likely to develop respiratory diseases that will then affect them for the rest of their lives. In some of the cases, most of the children that get sick at the stage do not make it to adulthood. This is relative to the fact that their immune systems are not well developed as mentioned earlier. As such, they in most cases succumb to diseases as their systems cannot effectively fight disease.
Asthma is one of the most common ailments that children under the age of five are treated for. In this case, asthma is also one of the leading causes of admission into hospital at this stage (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2016). The significance of the disease can be established from the fact that; it is included as one of the main objectives for the Healthy People 2020 program (‘Respiratory Diseases’, 2016). This is relative to severity of the disease and the impact that it has not just on the children, but their families as well as the society (Potter, 2016). The objective in this case is to make sure that the rate of asthma children under the age of five is reduced considerably; to make sure that the cases of children that are hospitalized for every 10000 drops to less than 18.2 % (‘Asthma’, 2016).
Background on Health Need Associated with Asthma Cases
A close look at the healthy people 2020 objectives sets the stage for the need to address asthma in the nation and specifically, when evaluating children vulnerability and future of the disease in the society. Statistically, from the year 2005 to 2010, there have been some fluctuations in the total number of children that are hospitalized. In 2005, there were an estimated 49.3 percent of children that were hospitalized with asthma all of whom were under the age of five years. The following year, the percentage came down to 43.3 followed by 41.4 in 2007 (Healthy People, 2016). In 2008 there was a great improvement relative to the fact that, the percentage dropped to an estimated 35.4 which is the lowest the figure has come down to (Lochte, Nielsen, Petersen, & Platts-Mills, 2016). In 2009, the figure shot up again to an estimated 40.6. According to the objective, the target that is to be achieved by the year 2020 is dropping the percentage of the children that are admitted to hospital with asthma to a mere 18.2. A close evaluation of the data indicates that, there are more males that are admitted with cases of asthma than there are females (‘Respiratory Diseases’, 2016). This is relative to the fact t...