Advantages And Disadvantages Of Screening Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of screening

Screening can be termed as the use of tests, examinations, and other methods to identify the presence of an undiagnosed disease or defect. Among the advantages of screening is that a health screening can help you take good steps toward healthier adjustments and help you evaluate how your lifestyle affects your overall wellness. This could involve dietary adjustments, a workout routine, quitting smoking, and stress management techniques (McKinney, 2020). Health screening is done on an individual basis. This means that elements unique to the individual are considered when determining which tests are required, which assures that the diagnostics are more precise. You might be able to make lifestyle adjustments to reduce your risk of having some inherited diseases if you know your risks with the help of scanning.

Diabetes, heart failure, and hypertension can run in families, but through scanning, someone can lead a healthy lifestyle and assist in compensating for some hereditary flaws. Scanning is also useful in detecting threatening diseases and proper control measures before they get fatal. Also, Early detection of an issue can lead to more successful therapy as there’s enough time to get the right medics, resources, and ideas about the detected case. Screening brings reassurance as it can tell a patient that he or she has a lower chance of getting diagnosed with a certain problem.

The screening comes with its disadvantages, such as there will always be some inaccurate results in each screening test. These results can be detrimental because someone may be falsely reassured or overly concerned, resulting in invasive or harmful tests or treatments that they do not require. The results brought about by screening can bring out anxiety and stressful life in individuals. Another disadvantage of screening is that even after conducting it the patient could develop the illness even if your screening test result is normal or negative, an indication of less or no risk at all. Some screening exams may force you to make uncomfortable choices.

For instance, if a prenatal screening test indicates that your baby has an increased risk of developing a certain condition, you may be confronted with the dilemma of undergoing additional diagnostic testing that may put your pregnancy in danger. If the screening test comes out positive, you’ll have to decide to choose whether or not to keep the pregnancy going. There may also be negative consequences from the screening process itself. Radiation is emitted by X-rays, and colonoscopies can result in bleeding or, in rare cases, serious harm.

Screening can offer the impression of being well cared for, knowingly or unknowingly, and so little incentive to assume accountability for someone’s health, such as continuing to smoke, exercising insufficiently, or eating a poor diet (Salim, 2020). People who have no indications or symptoms of the disease are tested as part of the screening process. It discovers treatable cases early enough to make a difference in the outcome, and this can spare some people from a fate and deadly diseases, but it will almost certainly cause many more people to suffer from a variety of physical, emotional, and financial consequences. The trade-offs between potential benefits and potential dangers are typically tough to succeed, as discussed in the contest.

References

McKinney, S. M., Sieniek, M., Godbole, V., Godwin, J., Antropova, N., Ashrafian, H., … & Shetty, S. (2020). International evaluation of an AI system for breast cancer screening. Nature, 577(7788), 89-94.