Chronic diseases are a significant matter of concern to both healthcare organizations and financial institutions developing state budgets and allocating resources not to mention the patients themselves. Similar diseases have a negative influence on the everyday life of people decreasing the quality of their lives because of constant discomfort and the need for special treatment, which cause great limitations to activities. In addition to it, they lead to more than 70 percent of health-related deaths. That is why, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (n.d.), the United States spend more than 86 percent of medical care dollars on treating chronic diseases. However, the worst detail concerning chronic diseases is the fact that they are preventable. It means that they exist not because the state ignores their severity but due to people’s choice to neglect the needs of their bodies.
This paper will focus on pelvic inflammatory disease. It is a woman’s chronic disease severely affecting health condition. The rationale for choosing this health issue for the research is the fact that it is one of the commonest causes of health-related deaths among young women (Ross, 2014). According to the recent statistics, more than 750,000 are diagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease annually. In most cases, the patients are 15 to 29 years old (Ford & Decker, 2016). However, it should be mentioned that these are the cases characterized by severe symptoms and requiring medical treatment. Sometimes, the symptoms are mild and impossible to detect or people do not attend hospitals seeking help for whatever reasons. So, in fact, the numbers are even higher. Such spectacular figures highlight the necessity for investigating this issue. Even if the research does not attract the attention of masses, it would be beneficial for educating young women at the local scale, i.e. within an institution of a family unit.
Pelvic inflammatory disease has a dreadful impact on women’s health. Because it affects the upper reproductive tract, i.e. “the endometrium, fallopian tubes, ovaries, or pelvic peritoneum” (Campion, Brunham, Gottlieb, & Paavonen, 2015, p. 2039), its complications vary from chronic pelvic pain to ectopic pregnancy, and even infertility (Ford & Decker, 2016). In most cases, even when the disease was diagnosed and treated in proper time, it still affects reproductive functions and has long-term consequences such as difficulties getting pregnant. Nowadays, the rate of effective treatment of this health problem has increased because of numerous breakthroughs in understanding the bacterial nature of the disease and designing and implementing equipment used for detecting the symptoms at the early stages of development.
There are some ways of incorporating health promotion and disease prevention in studying the progression of pelvic inflammatory disease. First of all, it is paramount to stress that the disease has a negative influence on the health of women. It is significant to highlight the fact that it is impossible to have a healthy nation without healthy women, i.e. the emphasis should be made on individual responsibility for the future welfare of the homeland. Second, it is vital to mention that the state cares for the needs of its citizens guaranteeing them the right to health improvement under the Affordable Care Act (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, n.d.). It means that every woman receives an opportunity to monitor the condition of her health. The only thing that should be done is reminding them of this fact. Finally, it is crucial to point to the simplicity of the preventive measures and their importance in improving the quality of an individual’s life and even saving it. Basically, it is necessary to remind that motherhood is the greatest happiness, which might be taken even in the case of ignoring preventive measures or symptoms and as the result of pelvic inflammatory disease complications.
Bearing in mind everything that was mentioned above, this paper aims at investigating such research questions:
- What are the symptoms of pelvic inflammatory disease from the mildest signs to the most severe ones?
- What preventive measures can be taken to avoid pelvic inflammatory disease or, at least, minimize its potential complications?
The motivation for putting these two questions at the center of the research is the fact that they would be more beneficial for achieving educative purposes of the paper. Of course, it is vital to have the knowledge regarding the ways to treat the disease, but I believe that being aware of the first signs, consequences, and potential complications of this health problem together with investigating its progression and effective preventive measures might become a perfect tool for attracting attention to its severity and motivating women, especially young ones, who are often suffering from it, to take care of themselves and their health. Simply speaking, it is vital to attract attention to understandable aspects of the disease, not intricate names of medications use to treat it. In general, it might contribute to solving the problem of high rates of chronic diseases and decrease the level of health-related deaths.
References
Campion, E. W., Brunham, R. C., Gottlieb, S. L., & Paavonen, J. (2015). Pelvic inflammatory disease. The New England Journal of Medicine, 372(21), 2039-2048.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Chronic disease prevention and health promotion. Web.
Ford, G. W., & Decker, C. F. (2016). Pelvic inflammatory disease. Disease-a-Month, 20 April 2016. Web.
Ross, (2014). Pelvic inflammatory disease. Medicine, 42(6), 333-337.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (n.d.). Read the law. Web.