Question

The Ambulatory care nurse is participating in a community effort to screen for hypertension. Screening for disease is an example of what type of prevention?

1) Primary
2) Secondary
3) Tertiary
4) Quaternary

Answer 1

Screening for hypertension is an example of secondary prevention, which involves identifying and treating individuals with asymptomatic, preclinical disease to prevent it from progressing.

Step-by-step explanation:

The community effort to screen for hypertension by the Ambulatory care nurse is an example of secondary prevention. Secondary prevention aims to identify and treat asymptomatic individuals who have already developed risk factors or preclinical disease but in whom the condition has not become clinically apparent. These activities are focused on early case finding of asymptomatic disease that occurs commonly and has significant risk for negative outcome without treatment. In contrast, primary prevention would prevent the disease from occurring at all, and tertiary prevention would focus on managing and rehabilitating patients with confirmed diseases.