Scientific Journal of Medical Sciences
Volume:1 Issue: 1, Winter 2022

This paper aimed to review the solutions presented in various articles to protect mental health in medical staff during the COVID-19 epidemic in the world.

In this systematic review, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, and PubMed databases were searched until 1 October 2020. All full-text published articles (also descriptive and observational articles but not abstracts, commentaries, and letters to the editors) that describe strategies to deal with the psychological problems of the medical staff were included without language restriction.

14 papers (8 observational and six descriptive papers) were entered for qualitative analysis. Analysis of these studies identified a) attention to physiological needs of staff; b) staying in touch with family and friends; c) peer support; d) team support; e) emotional support; and f) leadership or organizational support to provide psychological support to medical staff.

To fight in the first line of epidemic prevention and control, medical staff needs a physical and mental safeguard. So, proper interventions in the prevention and treatment of psychological problems of the medical staff seem to be essential.

Nosocomial infections are one of the important difficulties of medicine that cause infectious diseases, prolongation of hospitalization, financial and spiritual costs, and finally, mortalities. Nurses have an important role in preventing infections. Having appropriate knowledge is essential for proper performance also is the requirement of the right attitude. This study aimed to evaluate nurses' knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding preventing nosocomial infections in intensive care units.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted ‎on nurses of the intensive care unit of Alzahra ‎Hospital in Isfahan in 2018. Seventy-seven nurses ‎with at least six months of work experience were ‎selected by the viable sampling method. ‎The data was collected by a four-part questionnaire ‎including demographic characteristics, knowledge, ‎attitude, and practice.‎ Data were analyzed by SPSS 21 software using the Pearson correlation coefficient.

71.4% of the nursing staff had average knowledge, 58.4% had moderate attitudes toward preventing nosocomial infections, and 54.4% had an intermediate level of practice. There was no significant correlation between knowledge and attitude; there was no correlation between attitude and practice, but there was a significant relationship between knowledge and practice (p<0.05).

Because most ICU nurses have moderate knowledge, attitude, and practice toward preventing nosocomial infections, reeducation seems to be necessary.

Currently, one of the teaching methods in medicine and paramedical education is based on cyberspace. Due to its availability everywhere and all the time through the Internet, this method of education has become a useful and reliable tool, so this study aimed to determine the effect of virtual triage training on the accuracy of nurses' triage.

This quasi-experimental study was conducted in 2020. The records of 350 patients referred to the emergency ward of Imam Khomeini and Qamar Bani Hashem hospitals of Khoy University of Medical Sciences in which the trial "Emergency Severity Index" triage had been actively implemented, was selected by simple random sampling. A questionnaire containing demographic information and a triage form based on the triage algorithm "Emergency deterioration index" was used to collect data. The triage form based on the triage algorithm "Emergency deterioration index" was filled by the researcher to diagnose triage error. The patient's triage level was determined. Then the triage level recorded by the triage nurse was compared with the triage level determined by the researcher. One month after implementing the training program, 350 patient files were reviewed by the researcher and the level of triage was determined, and the amount of triage error was checked. Data were compared by nonparametric Chi-square and McNemar tests.

The triage error decreased from 28% before the intervention to 19.1% (p<00001). There was no statistically significant difference between demographic characteristics and triage error.

Giving the necessary knowledge to nurses, especially emergency nurses, causes the reduction of the amount of triage error.

Empathy plays an influential and essential role in the relationship between patient and physician. One of the well-known instruments for measuring empathy is the Jefferson 20-item questionnaire. This study aimed to determine empathy levels in medical interns of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences.

This cross-sectional study was carried out on 126 medical interns of Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences in 2020. Empathy was measured using the Jefferson Scale of Patient's Perceptions of Physician Empathy (JSPPPE). The questionnaire is self-report with a five-point Likert scale. Data were analyzed using SPSS 25 software through the Mann-Whitney U test and Spearman's correlation coefficient.

The average age of the subjects was 25.7±2.2 in the age range of 22-32. 85 (67.5%) subjects were female, and 93 (73.8%) were single. The mean empathy score of medical interns was 71.88±12.19 in the 40-96 range. Empathy score in females was significantly higher than males (p<0.0001), and it was higher in the subjects with the hospitalization history than the subjects without hospitalization history (p=0.037). There was not a significant difference between the age of the interns with their empathy score (r=0.08; p=0.375).

The empathy level of medical students during the internship is in a relatively favorable situation and is related to gender and hospitalization history.

Pregnancy is the most stressful period of a woman's life and can lead to depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The participation of pregnant women in childbirth classes reduces the hospitalization period and increases their satisfaction with the childbirth experience. This study aimed to investigate the effect of childbirth classes on pregnancy and postpartum happiness.

This quasi-experimental study was carried out on pregnant women referring to health centers of Bojnurd City in 2016. Eighty pregnant women were randomly selected and divided into intervention and control groups. The subjects in the intervention group participated in childbirth classes, while the control group received routine prenatal care. The intervention group subjects completed the happiness and pregnancy profile questionnaires after participating in the eighth session of Childbirth and postpartum classes. Data were analyzed using SPSS 22 software through independent T, Mann–Whitney U tests, and repeated measure analysis of variance.

There was no significant difference in the happiness scores between the control and intervention groups before the intervention (p=0.235). There was a significant difference in score changes of the happiness in the intervention group (p=0.017), while no significant difference was observed in the control group (p=0.315).

Childbirth preparation classes increased the mother's level of happiness due to creating the connection among pregnant mothers, creating awareness of pregnancy changes, teaching pregnancy exercises, and informing the husband to care mother.

The risk of exposure to blood-borne pathogens is one of the occupational hazards and serious concerns of health care workers. This study aimed to investigate the effect of the self-awareness development and empowerment model in emergency nurses on decreasing exposure to sharp objects and patients’ discharges.

This quasi-experimental study was conducted at Khoy University of Medical Sciences in 2019-2020. According to the census method, all 90 nurses who worked in the emergency ward of Imam Khomeini (42 patients as intervention group) and Qamar-e Banihashem (48 patients as the control group) hospitals participated in the study. The nurses of the intervention group underwent an educational program based on the self-awareness development model and were trained in 5 sessions. The questionnaire on exposure to sharp objects and discharges of patients was completed by nurses in both groups before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed using SPSS 19 software through non-parametric Chi-square, McNemar and Mann-Whitney, and independent T-tests.

There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups before implementing the model (p=0.647). Exposure history in emergency nurses was 55.6% (n=40). There was a statistically significant difference between the two groups after implementing training programs based on the model steps of nurses' exposure (p=0.024).

Implementation of the self-awareness and empowerment model effectively exposes sharp objects and patients' discharge in nurses working in emergency departments.

Due to the nature of their occupation, nurses are more likely to face dying patients and their demand for euthanasia than other people. This study aimed was to evaluate the nurses’ attitude in the ICU of Ahvaz educational hospitals towards euthanasia in 2018.

This study was conducted in 2018 in nurses of CCU, NICU, and ICU wards of Ahvaz teaching hospitals. 132 nurses were randomly entered into the study and their views on euthanasia and its types were assessed in the form of a questionnaire. Data were analyzed using independent T and Chi-square tests.

58.3% of nurses were against euthanasia and 41.7% were in favor. In voluntary passive euthanasia, the mean age of dissenting nurses was significantly higher than that of agreeing with nurses (p=0.003). In involuntary passive euthanasia, the average service history of dissenting nurses was significantly higher than that of agreeing with nurses (p=0.005). The average length of service in the intensive care units of anti-euthanasia nurses was significantly higher than the nurses who agreed with (p=0.002). Single nurses were significantly more in favor of euthanasia than married nurses (p=0.005). Nurses with a bachelor's degree were significantly more likely than nurses with a master's degree to oppose euthanasia (p=0.047). Nurses who had a person with a specific disease in their family were significantly more in favor of euthanasia than other nurses (p>0.001).

More than half of the nurses in the intensive care unit are against euthanasia and with increasing age, total service history and service history in the intensive care unit, the rate of opposition to euthanasia increases and if there is a terminally patient in the nurse family, the rate of opposition to euthanasia decreases.

During the last few months in which the COVID-19 has afflicted the people throughout the world and has turned out as a pandemic leaving nearly 200 thousand deaths, a broad body of information has overwhelmed the people’s mind and investigated the emergence, signs, preventive measures, and precautions to be taken against it. In this paper, the authors intend to define the community’s social resilience, its different types and the ways to survive it.

In this study, different sources of information such as the news, articles, mass media, and so on were investigated regarding the social resilience through library work.

Through this study, social resilience was described as a human community’s the ability not only to cope with but also to adapt to social, political, environmental, or economic stresses, which in our case refers to COVID-19 and its pandemic. The social resilience includes capabilities such as coping, adaptive, and transformative ones. The coping capacities refer to the ability of social actors (people) to cope with and overcome all kinds of adversities; the adaptive capacities show the people’s ability to learn from past experiences and adjust themselves to future challenges in their lives; and the transformative capacities are defined as the community’s ability to craft sets of institutions increasing individual welfare and sustainable societal robustness towards future crises.

We should search for the ways to build and maintain social resilience in the community to cope with the current and different types of stresses they suffer from.