Nursing Case Study Essay

The case study outline is designed to promote one approach to investigate public health problems. There are seven steps in the outline and the order of these steps may vary from situation to situation and country to country. However applying this systemic approach is essential to ensure that steps are not missed. First step is detecting the problem; this step includes identifying an outbreak that could or does have a significant impact on a certain population. There needs to be a substantial impact to justify the resources and money to be spent on investigation. The second step is to develop a system to characterize the problem. A list of the criteria for recognizing a case, a case definition, must be developed as well as method of ascertainment, …show more content…
Pulsed-field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) and serotyping are example of subtyping. Serotypes are groups within a single species of microorganisms that share distinctive surface structures; Salmonella bacteria can be separated into many serotypes based on two structures. The outermost portion of Salmonella’s surface called O antigen and the slender threadlike structure called the H antigen which is also a part of its flagella. The O antigens are distinguished by their differences in the chemical make-up and the H antigens are distinguished by the protein contents of its flagella. Each O and H antigen have a unique code and scientists determine the serotype based on the distinct combinations of these two antigens. PFGE is another technique used by scientist to generate a DNA fingerprint for a bacterial isolate. PFGE is used to subtype many pathogenic bacteria, including Salmonella, based on DNA composition. Bacteria with the same isolate suggest that they are from a common ancestor and therefore, arose from the same parent and could potentially represent an