Health Promotion and Maintenance Q 138
The nurse is caring for the client with a 5-year-old diagnosis of plumbism. Which information in the health history is most likely related to the development of plumbism?
A. The client has traveled out of the country in the last 6 months.
B. The client’s parents are skilled stained-glass artists.
C. The client lives in a house built in one.
D. The client has several brothers and sisters.
Correct Answer: B. The client’s parents are skilled stained-glass artists.
Plumbism is lead poisoning. One factor associated with the consumption of lead is eating from pottery made in Central America or Mexico that is unfired. The child lives in a house built after 1976 (this is when lead was taken out of paint), and the parents make stained glass as a hobby. Stained glass is put together with lead, which can drop on the work area, where the child can consume the lead beads.
Option A: Traveling out of the country does not increase the risk of plumbism. Because lead is not biodegradable, it demonstrates remarkable environmental persistence. Despite the fact that the amount of lead in paint intended for use in or on residential buildings, furniture, or children’s toys in the United States has been restricted to 0.06% since 1978 and was further reduced to 0.009% in 2008, lead-based paint continues to be a major source of lead exposure in young children.
Option C: The house was built after the lead was removed with the paint. Several million young children in the United States live in older homes in which lead-based paint was previously used, and as this old paint ages, it peels, flakes, and crumbles into dust that settles on the interior surfaces of homes and in the soil surrounding the exterior of the home. The dust and soil containing these tiny paint particles inevitably make their way into children’s mouths as a result of normal childhood exploratory hand-to-mouth behavior.
Option D: Having several siblings is unrelated to the stem. A variety of occupations and hobbies may expose adults to lead, and working parents may inadvertently bring lead home where they can expose their children second-hand. Some of the highest risk occupations and hobbies include metal welding, battery manufacturing, and recycling, shipbuilding and shipbreaking, firing range use or instruction as well as bullet salvaging, lead smelting and refining, painting and construction work, and pipefitting and plumbing.