Infectious Disease: Pertussis
Bria Walker
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Pertussis is an upper respiratory tract infectious disease, which is severely contagious. Also known as the whooping cough. Bordetella Pertussis is the known bacteria that causes the infection. This bacteria irritates the airway causing it to swell. The swelling of the airway presents in an uncontrollable cough and difficult breathing. Each deep breath that is taken, it is said that you can hear a whooping sound; hence the name “whooping cough”. Pertussis only affects humans and can be found in people of all ages. Those less than a year old are severely affected by the infection. Signs and symptoms of the infection are: runny nose, fever, vomiting and the two hallmark sings; uncontrollable cough and apnea. Symptoms can develop within 5-10 days of exposure and last up to about 3 or more weeks …show more content…
Education is a big role of mine as a nurse. Throughout my nursing career I will be required and or encouraged to educate the public about vaccinations. “To ensure a reduction of the incidence in pertussis is to promote universal vaccination” (Rittle, 2010). If we as health care providers do not educate our clients appropriately. Then any intervention that we may do to help improve their health will be almost useless. This is because our interventions are to help improve their health but if we don’t also educate the client. They may not know what it is that they may have done to cause them to need our help, and they may not know how to prevent it from happening again. Then the client will return to us again for the same reason and we will be repeating the same interventions. SO the same goes for preventing pertussis. If we don’t educate our client s about the DTaP and Tdap vaccination then we are decreasing the publics’ resources and increasing the risk for pertussis
Bria Walker
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Pertussis is an upper respiratory tract infectious disease, which is severely contagious. Also known as the whooping cough. Bordetella Pertussis is the known bacteria that causes the infection. This bacteria irritates the airway causing it to swell. The swelling of the airway presents in an uncontrollable cough and difficult breathing. Each deep breath that is taken, it is said that you can hear a whooping sound; hence the name “whooping cough”. Pertussis only affects humans and can be found in people of all ages. Those less than a year old are severely affected by the infection. Signs and symptoms of the infection are: runny nose, fever, vomiting and the two hallmark sings; uncontrollable cough and apnea. Symptoms can develop within 5-10 days of exposure and last up to about 3 or more weeks …show more content…
Education is a big role of mine as a nurse. Throughout my nursing career I will be required and or encouraged to educate the public about vaccinations. “To ensure a reduction of the incidence in pertussis is to promote universal vaccination” (Rittle, 2010). If we as health care providers do not educate our clients appropriately. Then any intervention that we may do to help improve their health will be almost useless. This is because our interventions are to help improve their health but if we don’t also educate the client. They may not know what it is that they may have done to cause them to need our help, and they may not know how to prevent it from happening again. Then the client will return to us again for the same reason and we will be repeating the same interventions. SO the same goes for preventing pertussis. If we don’t educate our client s about the DTaP and Tdap vaccination then we are decreasing the publics’ resources and increasing the risk for pertussis