The Primary prevention Is the prevention of diseases or mental disorders in susceptible individuals or populations, through the promotion of health, including mental health.
Its goal is to reduce incidence and its strategy to eliminate causal risk factors (risk reduction), which promotes, preserves, protects and restores health.
This is done by preventing exposure to the dangers that cause illness or injury, altering unhealthy or unsafe behaviors that can lead to illness or injury, and increasing resistance to disease or injury in the event of Exposure.
Primary prevention not only refers to proactive or prophylactic"treatment"to prevent health problems before they arise, but also incorporates the modification of the behaviors or risk factors that are associated with a particular health outcome.
For people in general, primary prevention interventions include vaccines to prevent certain diseases, changes in behaviors such as quitting cigarettes, starting a balanced diet, starting an exercise program, among others.
For health-promoting entities, primary prevention includes: legislation and its application to prohibit or control the use of hazardous products (eg asbestos), to enforce safe and healthy practices (eg use of safety belts and Bicycle helmets), inform about healthy and safe habits (eg eating well, exercising regularly, not smoking), campaigns for immunization against infectious diseases, among others.
Some approaches involve active participation, as with tooth brushing and flossing to prevent tooth decay. Other approaches are passive: adding fluoride to municipal drinking water to toughen tooth enamel and prevent cavities.
Matrix of Haddon
William Haddon made a useful contribution about how injuries occur and how to prevent them. The"Haddon Matrix"is a table showing the host, agent, and environmental factors involved, in contrast to the time sequence of an incident.
Matrix cells illustrate the range of factors involved in risk or protection; Haddon emphasized the multidisciplinary nature of possible interventions. For example in a collision of motor vehicles:
Doctors in primary prevention
Physicians are particularly well placed to play a key role in promoting primary prevention goals, and can contribute in a number of different capacities.
- Doctors often detect cases of environmental illness, and therefore draw attention to exposures that could have widespread consequences.
- They routinely advise patients on the risks of exposure, so they must often interpret and translate the results of research so that the patient understands them better.
- There are public opinion studies that have shown that people rely on their doctors as highly credible sources of information about health risks.
- Doctors can raise awareness about health problems and can help people understand the connections between their behavior and its consequent effects on the environment and human health. They can help to engender a major change in the mentality of the public.
- Doctors are also increasingly involved in health promotion, both at the level of health and public policy.
Primary prevention in psychiatry
Primary care is expanding more and more to other areas important to the human being, such as psychiatry.
The concept of prevention in psychiatry is unique. It includes the promotion of mental health, the identification of risk factors throughout the life cycle, and appropriate early interventions. Recent emphasis has been placed on early intervention in the development of mental illness that has led to several preventive programs with varying degrees of success.
Preventive psychiatry is a branch of preventive medicine in public health. Its objective is to promote the good mental health of the people and to prevent the appearance or reduce the incidence of the psychiatric illness in a population.
As in other public health efforts, the practice of preventive psychiatry requires the collaboration of related disciplines, including political, sociological, psychological, educational, psychotherapeutic, biochemical, pharmacological, nursing and others.
Primary preventive psychiatry is defined as the work of keeping people healthy, from a psychiatric point of view. Primary preventive services vary in content from experience to the organic.
Many approaches to the primary prevention of mental illness are being developed simultaneously: biological, psychoanalytic, behavioral, cognitive, family, cultural, sociological, political, among others.
An investigation by San Juan Episcopal Hospital in New York concluded that there is evidence that primary prevention may delay the onset of mental illness, especially schizophrenia . Pharmacological treatment for high-risk individuals, combined with Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), have shown promising results in several studies.
According to the study, strategies that teach younger individuals to cope with stress and provide them with psychosocial support have been effective in preventing mood disorders and anxiety .
That is why early detection measures are also being widely applied to children and young people, especially those who are receiving forms of public assistance in many public school systems.
Primary prevention of mental and emotional disorders can occur through a variety of organic means. A major focus is the reduction of exposure to environmental toxins, such as lead, prevention of childhood encephalopathies and associated mental retardation.
Similarly, the prevention of congenital syphilis (or AIDS) saves countless children with Organic psychoses . Genetic counseling in relation to the risk of transmission of manic-depressive illness, or the risk of schizophrenia, is another biologically based primary preventive measure.
In the field of experience, educational and social support services for prospective parents can serve as primary psychiatric prevention measures, sometimes with quantifiable results, such as reducing the incidence of abusive behavior.
Primary psychiatric prevention is increasingly practiced in mentally ill people exposed to special mental health risks as a way to make them strong against those risks. For example, when functional families with presumably mentally healthy but congenitally deformed babies are treated by the psychiatrist, psychologist, and physician, so that acceptance of their child occurs before birth.
On the other hand, grief facilitation is a widely used measure for people at risk of death from a spouse or parent. The strategies used in facilitating grief can come from a variety of disciplines. The goal may be to provide grief-related defenses and gut-related affective discharge, with the aim of preventing or reducing a pathological structuring of those defenses.
Thus, family therapy techniques can increase mutual support and healthy interactions among surviving members. Network therapy can broaden and deepen the immediate mutual assistance of the family and community.
Finally, something interesting about psychiatry, was a publication of the Association of Medical Faculties of Canada, which indicated the importance of primary prevention in the case of suicide of young people.
For this association, the issue falls under the domain of population health approaches, involving a wide range of government agencies and focusing on the development of healthy public policies and the modification of the basic determinants of health. Strategies could include social programs for high-risk youth in areas of high suicide rates, or placement of safety nets in frequent suicide zones.
Primary prevention in gender violence
Primary prevention in cases of gender-based violence is the most strategic approach to ending violence against women and girls.
Primary prevention strategies:
- Implementation of infrastructure and institutions to address violence against women and girls.
- The promotion of gender equality through the expansion of women and girls' economic opportunities, access to basic services, education, social and political participation, as well as the breakdown of harmful gender stereotypes For women and girls.
- Changing discriminatory attitudes, norms and practices that perpetuate violence against women and girls through multi-faceted educational and social mobilization approaches and targeted campaigns.
- The development of programs and interventions that are based on scientific theories and behavior change, for both community-based and school-based settings.
- The orientation of specific problems that correlate with violence against women and girls. For example, in cases of alcohol abuse, interventions could regulate the sale of alcohol or develop specific treatment programs for people with substance abuse problems.
References
- Kottke TE (2009). Society, the individual, and medicine. Retrieved from: https://www.med.uottawa.ca. Prev Med.
- What Researchers Mean By (2005). Retrieved from: https://www.iwh.on.ca. Institute for Work & Health.
- AFMC Population Health Study. Retrieved from: http://phprimer.afmc.ca. The Association of Medical Faculties of Canada.
- Indian J Psychol Med (2009). Psychological Medicine. Retrieved from: https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Medknow Publications.
- Brenner R (2010). Primary prevention in psychiatry - Adult populations. Retrieved from: https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Hospital of San Juan.
- Gilbert Kliman (1990). What is Preventive Psychiatry? Retrieved from: http://www.experts.com. Journal of Preventive Psychiatry and Related Disciplines.
- Guedes and Bott (2009). Promote primary prevention. Retrieved from: http://www.endvawnow.org. UN Women.