QUESTIONS TO ANSWER ON THE BELOW WRITE-UP

Provide constructive feedback or pose questions to your colleagues about the effectiveness of their selected educational media with their patient population.

Explain whether your colleagues’ media pieces would be effective with patients at your current Practicum setting. If so, explain why. If not, explain how you would revise the media to reach your patient population.

Alcohol Consumption

Week Eight Initial Post

Alcohol consumption during pregnancy, especially during the earliest weeks of gestations, is associated with poor pregnancy outcomes (Lepper, Lluka, Mayer, Patel, Salas, Xaverius, & Kramer, 2016). Any amount of alcohol consumption during pregnancy is associated with miscarriage, preterm birth, stillbirth, low birth weight, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), which include behavioral and intellectual disabilities (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). However, despite the detrimental consequences of alcohol exposure during pregnancy, the pattern of women drinking before and during pregnancy has continued to increase (Lepper, Lluka, Mayer, Patel, Salas, Xaverius, & Kramer, 2016). According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2017), about 1 in 9 pregnant women have reported the use of alcohol within 30 days.

Therefore, it is imperative to educate women of reproductive age and pregnant women to increase the awareness of the risks associated with drinking during pregnancy. I choose the prevention of alcohol consumption during pregnancy because of the increasing prevalence of the situation and also because I believe it is a vital primary prevention for the patient population at my practicum setting. Many of the patients I work with are young immigrants and health promotion during pregnancy and education about abstaining from alcohol during pregnancy is vital for them. I will use posters in the clinic about the effects of alcohol on the mother and the baby’s health as well as flyers for patients to take home. I choose this method of education because posters can help to disseminate relevant information to patients in an effective manner. The poster can be review with the patient why providing care and can act as a getaway into introducing health education and prevention (screening for alcohol), and also giving patients flyers afterward to take home that reinforces the education. Studies have shown that “poster presentations achieve success in increasing knowledge, changing attitudes and behavior when integrated with a suite of educational interventions” ( Dragan & Nicholas,p. 1, 2013).

The poster will have educational and health promotional information that includes the importance of women to absentee from alcohol during pregnancy (Popova, Lange, Probst, Parunashvili, & Rehm, 2017). The poster and flyer will stress that no amount of alcohol is safe for consumption during pregnancy(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017).

It is essential to engage in education with women about fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and other adverse effects of alcohol on the fetus such as miscarriage, stillbirth, low body weight, abnormal facial features, hyperactive behavior, learning disabilities, speech and language delays, intellectual disability, and vision, hearing, heart, kidney, or bones problems(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017).

Screening all female patients of reproductive age about their alcohol consumption is essential to prevention. The poster will also introduce women to CHOICE which is a program for women who are not pregnant but are at high risk to help them reduce or stop drinking or the use of contraceptives(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2017). The goal of a comprehensive prevention program is to prevent the mother and fetus from alcohol exposure during pregnancy and future prevention efforts that include alcohol education programs and interventions to younger women, those with higher income, and women who are intending to get pregnant (Lepper, Lluka, Mayer, Patel, Salas, Xaverius, & Kramer, 2016).

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017). Alcohol Use in Pregnancy. Retrieved from. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/alcohol-use.html

Dragan, I., & Nicholas, R. (2013). What is the evidence that poster presentations are effective in promoting knowledge transfer? A state of the art review. Health Information and Libraries Journal, (1), 4. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1111/hir.12015

Lepper, L. E. T., Lluka, A., Mayer, A., Patel, N., Salas, J., Xaverius, P. K., & Kramer, B. (2016). Socioeconomic Status, Alcohol Use, and Pregnancy Intention in a National Sample of Women. Prevention Science: The Official Journal Of The Society For Prevention Research, 17(1), 24–31. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1007/s11121-015-0578-3

Popova, S., Lange, S., Probst, C., Parunashvili, N., & Rehm, J. (2017). Prevalence of alcohol consumption during pregnancy and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders among the general and Aboriginal populations in Canada and the United States. European Journal of Medical Genetics, 60(1), 32–48. https://doi-org.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/10.1016/j.ejmg.2016.09.010