Nursing and Midwifery Studies
Volume:3 Issue: 4, Oct-Dec 2014

Urinary retention is a common postoperative complication that mandates urinary catheterization. Urinary catheterization is associated with different physical, mental, and financial problems for both patients and healthcare systems. The patient inconvenience, urinary tract infections, and increase in hospital stay and expenses are common problems of urinary retention and urinary catheterization. Therefore, alternative ways of relieving urinary retention, preferably noninvasive interventions, are of great interest.. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of placing hot pack and lukewarm-water-soaked gauze on the suprapubic region on male patients with postoperative urinary retention..Patients and This was a three-group, randomized, controlled trial. A convenience sample of 126 male patients who had undergone general, orthopedic, or urologic surgeries were recruited. The block randomization method was used for allocating patients to either the two experimental groups (the hot pack and the lukewarm-water-soaked gauze groups) or the control one. Patients in the experimental groups were treated by placing either hot pack or lukewarm-water-soaked gauze on the suprapubic region. All patients were monitored for 20 minutes for urinary retention relief. If they did not experience urinary retention relief (starting urine flow and bladder evacuate), urinary catheterization would be performed. The data was collected using information sheet. Elimination of urinary retention was compared among study groups. The one-way analysis of variance and the Chi-square tests were used for analyzing data.. Respectively, 59.5%, 71.4%, and 7.1% of patients in the hot pack, the soaked gauze, and the control groups experienced relief from urinary retention and the bladder was emptied. There was a significant difference among study groups in percentage of patients who experienced urinary retention relief. However, the difference between the two experimental groups was not significant. The time to urinary retention relief in hot pack, soaked gauze, and control groups was 15.45 ± 3.15, 13.83 ± 3.80, and 14.59 ± 3.29 minutes, respectively. The difference among the study groups in time to urinary retention relief was not statistically significant.. Both the lukewarm-water-soaked gauze and the hot pack techniques had significant effects on postoperative urinary retention and significantly reduced the need for urinary catheterization. Using these two simple and cost-effective techniques for managing postoperative urinary retention is recommended..

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the most common autoimmune disorder of the central nervous system with profound effects on patients’ independence and self-efficacy. Then, it is still questionable whether self-management programs in patients with MS affect the patients’ self-efficacy.. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of a self-management program plus regular follow-up on self-efficacy in patients with MS..Patients and A quasi-experimental study was performed on 80 patients with relapsing remitting MS who were randomly allocated to an intervention (n = 40) and a control group (n = 40). The MS self-efficacy scale was completed before and after the intervention. The intervention group was divided into four small subgroups of ten. Then, each subgroup was invited to participate in four training sessions about self-management. During the two months after the self-management sessions, a weekly telephone follow-up was conducted for each patient in the intervention group. The control group did not receive any intervention other than routine care. Data were analyzed using SPSS 11.5. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square, and independent-samples t-testes were used to analyze the data.. No significant difference in mean scores of baseline self-efficacy was found between the control (52.90 ± 8.03) and the intervention groups (54.90 ± 9.51) (P = 0.313). However, a significant difference was observed between the control (50.90 ± 5.71) and the intervention groups (59.80 ± 5.27) regarding mean scores of self-efficacy at the end of the study (P < 0.001).. Implementing the self-management program plus regular follow-up increased the perception of self-efficacy in patients with MS. Similar self-management programs are recommended to be integrated in the regular caring of patients with MS..

Central venous catheterization (CVC) is an important procedure in emergency departments (EDs). Despite existence of ultrasonography (US) devices in every ED, CVC is done using anatomical landmarks in many EDs in Iran.. This study aimed to compare the traditional landmark method vs. US-guided method of CVC placement in terms of complications and success rate..Patients and In this randomized controlled trial, patients who were candidate for internal jugular vein catheterization, and referred to Baqiyatallah Hospital ED were randomly allocated into US-guided CVC and anatomical landmarks guided CVC groups. Central vein access time, number of attempts, success rate, and complications in each group were evaluated. Mann-Whitney U, chi-square and Fisher exact tests along with Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients were used to analyze the data.. Out of 100 patients, 56 were male and 44 were female. No significant differences were found between the US-guided and traditional landmark methods of CVC insertion in terms of age, gender, BMI, and site of catheter insertion. The mean access time was significantly lower in the US-guided group (37.12 ± 17.33 s vs. 63.42 ± 35.19 s, P < 0.001). The mean number of attempts was also significantly lower in the US-guided group (1.12 ± 0.3 vs. 1.58 ± 0.64 times, P < 0.001). Eighty-eight percent of patients in the US-guided group were catheterized in the first attempt, while 50% of patients in the traditional landmark group were catheterized in the second or more attempts (P < 0.001). The success rate was 100% in the US-guided group, while it was 88% in the landmark group (P = 0.013). Moreover, the rate of complications was significantly lower in the US-guided group (4% vs. 24%, P = 0.004).. The US-guided method for CVC placement was superior to the traditional landmark method in terms of access time, number of attempts, success rate, and fewer complications..

Radiological examinations for patients who are hospitalized at intensive care units are usually performed using portable radiography devices. However they may require knowledge and safety precautions of nurses.. The aim of the study was to investigate ICU nurses’ knowledge of radiation safety and their behaviors towards portable radiological examinations.. In total, 44 intensive care nurses were recruited for this cross-sectional descriptive study using census sampling during April and May 2014. The study setting was at intensive care units of Shahid Beheshti Hospital of Kashan, Iran. An eleven-item questionnaire and a five-item checklist were used for evaluating nurses’ radiation protection knowledge and behaviors, respectively. An expert panel consisting of ten nursing and radiology faculty members confirmed the content validity of the questionnaire and the checklist. Moreover, a Geiger-Müller counter was used for measuring ionizing radiation during portable radiological examinations. Study data were analyzed using the SPSS software version 13.0. Mean, standard deviation, frequency and one-sample t test were used for description of the data. The level of significance was set at below 0.05.. The mean of participants’ radiation protection knowledge was 4.77 ± 1.38. The most prevalent radiation protection behavior of nurses was leaving the intensive care unit during portable radiological examinations. Only 6.8% of nurses stayed at the nursing station during radiological examinations. The highest dose of radiation was 0.11 micro Sievert per hour (μSv/h), which was much lower than the highest permitted level of radiation exposure i.e. 0.25 μSv/h.. Portable radiological examinations did not expose healthcare providers to high doses of ionizing radiation. Nurses’ radiation protection knowledge was limited and hence, they require in-service education programs.

The prehospital delay might result in death in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI).. This study aimed to investigate the prehospital delay and its related factors in patients with AMI admitted to Kashan’s Shahid Beheshti Hospital..Patients and This cross-sectional study was conducted on 117 patients with AMI in the second half of 2013. The interval between the onset of symptoms and arrival at the hospital was noted and in cases of delay, the factors leading to the delay were investigated using a questionnaire. The content validity of the questionnaire was confirmed through content validity method and its internal consistency was confirmed using Cronbach''s alpha coefficient. Chi-square test, odds ratio, and logistic regression analysis were used in data analysis.. The median delay was 129 minutes (mean ± SD, 240.44 ± 295.30). Overall, 32.5% of patients were admitted within 90 minutes of symptom onset. The long distance between living locations to the hospital was the most common cause of delay to hospital admission (31.7%). Significant associations were observed between the delay time and location of residency (P = 0.00) and type of transportation vehicle (P = 0.003). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the location of residency and type of transportation vehicle could significantly predict the delay time in patients with AMI (P = 0.039 and 0.036, respectively).. The delay time from symptom onset to hospital admission was high in patients with AMI. It is necessary to create emergency medical system (EMS) stations in suburbs and train the public on the importance of quick contact with the EMS when the symptoms of an AMI are observed..

The members of healthcare team have an important role in implementation and protection of patient’s rights. Contemporary nursing entails an ethical responsibility to advocate and protect the patients’ rights.. This study was designed to evaluate how ready nursing students, at the end of their education, were to play the role of patient’s rights advocates and to discuss ethics education in nursing.. This descriptive study was performed on nursing students at Black Sea Universities in the academic year 2010-2011. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire about students’ attitudes regarding patients’ rights including patient’s rights regulations. The association between gender and students’ attitudes was analyzed using Chi-square test.. The mean age of the 238 participants was 22.11 ± 1.21 years and 82.8% of them were female. The majority of the nursing students held desirable attitudes toward patient information, truth telling, and protection of patients’ privacy and medical records. However, the students’ views about the rights of patients to refuse treatment, children’s active participation in treatment, prioritization of the quality of life in treatment, and respect for the rights of dying patients were less satisfactory.. The results of this study was concerning with regard to nursing students’ readiness for duties such as patient’s rights advocacy. Therefore, it proposes ethics education that covers both patient’s rights and the obligations of nurses to defend these rights..

Little is known about the features of Iranian nursing journals, specifically the subject areas used in articles, study designs, sampling methods, international collaboration of Iranian nursing scholars, specialty and academic rank of authors, and the most frequently contributing academic institutions in articles.. The aim of this study was to analyze the content of the articles published in Iranian scientific nursing journals.. Quantitative content analysis was implemented to study Iranian nursing journals, which were approved by the commission for accreditation and improvement of Iranian medical journals in 2011. Thus, 763 articles from six journals, published from 2009 through 2011, were investigated. Data were extracted from the abstracts and when necessary, from the full-text of articles by visiting the websites of these journals. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.. The main subjects of published articles in Iranian scientific nursing journals were consecutively renal dialysis (n = 21), intensive care unit (n = 16), nursing education (n = 15), patient satisfaction (n = 13), quality of life (n = 12), health education (n = 11), patient education (n = 11), pain (n = 10), and education (n = 9). The majority of authors had nursing and midwifery specialty (52.59%) followed by epidemiology/biostatistics specialty (7.72%). Isfahan, Tehran, Shahid Beheshti, Iran, Baqiyatallah, and Urmia universities of medical sciences had consecutively the largest number of publications in the studied journals. Only three papers (0.39%) were published by the international collaboration.. Iranian nursing journals should publish special issues in the neglected subject areas. These journals should encourage authors to publish research evidence with higher quality..