When seeking to identify a patient’s health situation, advanced practice nurses uses a diverse selection of diagnostic test and assessment tools. However, various factors affect the validity and reliability of the results produced by the test tools. Some factors affecting the reliability of the test tool’s results include the assessment length, which a more extended assessment generally produces. Other factors include the suitability of the questions or tasks for the student being assessed, the terminology and the phrasing of the question, the design of the marking schedule and the moderation of making procedures. The validity of an assessment tool is the expanse to which it measures what it was designed to measure without contaminating from another characteristic. Factors affecting the study’s validity include the size of the subject or specimen, the type of variability of the subject, the attrition of the samples, and the instrument or assessment sensitivity (Chen et al., 2022). Nurses must be aware of such factors to select the most necessary test or tool and accurately interpret the results. The diagnostic test does not affect adults only; body measurements can provide a general picture indicating whether a child receives adequate nutrition or is at risk for health issues. This essay aims to provide an explanation of the health issues relevant to the assigned child, additional information needed to assess her weight-related health, look at the questions to ask the patient according to the information, and lastly, explore two strategies to encourage the parents or caregivers to be proactive on the child’s health and weight.
When one is underweight, their overall health and life span can be impacted by health concerns and issues. from the information above, the patient is underweight which causes concern for poor nutrition which eventually will impact her growth and development, inability to fight off infections and illnesses, high risk for heart attacks and impaired thinking like deceased concentration (Chaparro & Suchdev, 2019). The parents are also underweight, indicating that their socioeconomic status is poor, and they are not able to afford food of some form of genetic and diseases that affect the endocrine and digestive systems. Another factor contributing to her being underweight is her mental health, as she may have a traumatic event where she is ashamed of her body and controls her life through her weight and eating disorder or, to some extent, being bullied at school and she is depressed.
When figuring out the health concerns and issues, the nutritional factors for the family are required. This information would include what they eat, how often they buy food and if they think their condition is a healthy weight. The healthcare provider will gather the patient’s body mass index and her family’s to check if they are healthy or underweight (Nichols, 2020). During this process, the provider will be required to apply the formula of calculating the body mass index, where the provider will take the weight of the patient and divide it by her height where if the number is under 19.5, the patient will be considered underweight and have poor nutrition. Body mass index is an estimate of body fat and a good gauge of one’s risk for diseases that occurs with more body fat. The higher the BMI, the higher the risk for certain diseases, such as heart disease among others.
Focusing on the case study and the additional information needed to further investigate the patient’s health history, specific questions will need to be asked of the patient. The three targeted questions the provider should ask the patient and parents include how the patient would describe her weight. This question would be essential as it would enable the provider to asses her mental health status on how she understands herself. The second question the provider would ask the patient would be based on her family members and the provider would ask the patient if her family members are as slim as she is. This question will enable the provider to gather information on genetics being a possible factor in the patient’s health or if the condition is for the patient alone. The third and the last question that a provider would ask the patient is what type of food the patient takes within a period of 24hrs. This would enable the provider to understand whether poor nutrition would cause the girl’s poor health, and the provider could guide the patient on the nutritious food to take to improve her overall health.
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