Advances in Nursing and Midwifery
Year:2015 | Volume:25 | Issue:90|Papers Count:12

Introduction: Balance impairment in multiple sclerosis patients was found to be associated with an increased risk of falls. The aim of this study was to determine the risk of falls among multiple sclerosis patients who have referred to the MS Society of Tehran 2014.Materials and Methods: This was a prospective cohort study.199 multiple sclerosis patients were selected by convenient method. The data collection tools were Tinetti performance-oriented mobility assessment (POMA), demographic and self-reported fall questionnaire. The patients were divided into three groups based on POMA scores. The face and content validity of tools was determined. The reliability of POMA was obtained by inter-rater method (0.95). The Cronbach's alpha for researcher-made questionnaire was 0.97. The data were analyzed by using Chi-square test and Mann-Whitney U test.Results: There was a negative relationship between the occurrence of falls with the balance and gait scores among MS patients (p<0.001). The MS patients, who gain a lower balance point, had more fall events. According to the score rating sum of POMA, most multiple sclerosis patients had high and average score ratings. Also, all three balance motor ability and gait scores, the total balance and gait score had a significant relationship with MS patients’ fall events (p<0.001).Conclusion: In the present study, most of patient with multiple sclerosis had higher and average scores of gait and balance. POMA is a quick and easy test for identifying, classifying, and predicting the risk of falls among multiple sclerosis patients.

Background & Aim: Utilization of nursing theories for finding the factors associated with self-efficacy in the patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery is very important. This study was conducted to determine the factors associated with self-efficacy based on Orem's theory in these patients after coronary bypass surgery.Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive-correlative study.150 patients undergoing coronary artery bypass surgery were selected with convinince sampling. The data was collected by the demographic questionnaire and the self-efficacy questionnaire. The self-efficacy questionnaire was made based on Orem’s theory of self care. Instroments validity and relability was determined by content validity and Cronbach Alpha (0.095). Data were analyzed using SPSS software ver19.Findings: Results of this research showed that self-efficacy in patients after coronary artery bypass surgery was low (2%), medium (49%) and high (49%). Self-efficacy was significantly correlated with some basic conditioning factors based on Orem’s theory (marital status, employment, level of education, age, income, health insurance and education about surgery). The highest level of self-efficacy were in regard of medication use, regular physician consultation, and low fat and low salt diet consumption at home.Conclusion: Patients after coronary artery bypass surgery were more confident in regard to medication use, regular physician consultation than exercise and stop smoking. This may indicate that Patients have less attention to non-pharmacological aspects (healthy lifestyle and long-term adherence) and selfcare behaviors after coronary artery bypass surgery. It seems that nurses and physicians should emphasize on the effects of non–medical cares more clearly and enhance motivation based on selfefficacy of the patients.

Background and aim: Stressful life events during pregnancy are associated with adverse consequences for mother and newborn. The purpose of this study was to understand the effects of stressful life events during pregnancy on low-birth-weight newborn according to social determinants of health.Materials and Methods: This study was the second part of a large research project. The main study was conducted using case-control design.Samples were recruited in four stages by selecting 750 mothers with newborns weighing less than 4000 gr using multistage sampling method. The data about women’s lifestyle during pregnancy was collected using a questionnaire which was developed using inductive and deductive approaches based on social determinants of health. This study assessed stressful life events during pregnancy using 18 items Findings: The average of stressful life events number and the total score of this domain were different between two groups (p<0.001). The odds ratio for effect of a one-unit increase in stress score, increased the risk of low- birth-weight by 1.03 times (p=0.001).Conclusion: The stressful life events can influence fetal growth independently. Although receiving health care during pregnancy (the biological dimension), has an important influence, the role of stress, the related factors and the coping methods should be considered.

Background and aim: Researchers, in qualitative researches, both influences on and take effect from the research process. One of the main issues in qualitative research is validity of the researcher as an instrument of data collection. If the researcher does not have enough validity in the data collection, the results of the study will also not be cited. The researcher as instrument provides an opportunity for researchers to enter into the unknown world of individual about the phenomena in question and sometimes faced many challenges in reaching this goal. This study has been reviewing the opportunities and challenges of researchers as an instrument in the qualitative research.Materials and methods: This was a review study on the methodology of qualitative research. Using keywords including qualitative research, instrument, challenges, and opportunities, articles and available books were investigated in PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, Proquest, Magiran, SCI, IranDoc, SID, Medlib, IranMedex databases with no time limit. The Quality of the articles was assessed by using the McMaster Critical Review Form for Qualitative studies.Findings: Studies over 12 books and 18 articles showed that the role of the researcher can be varied in different qualitative research designs such as phenomenology researches, grounded theory, ethnography, and content analysis researches.Also previous experience and skills in the process of observation and interview, having effective communication and asking the appropriate questions have an important impact on the role of researchers as a key factor in qualitative research.Conclusions: Researchers have the main role, especially in data gathering of different types of qualitative researches. Actually they are factors that validate the data. Experience and skills, ability to communicate, asking the right questions are the most important factors that have an influence on doing qualitative research in an appropriate ways.

Background and aim: Professional self-concept is an individual’s perception of self as a professional person and it affects his/her thinking, role development and professional functions. Among the various professions, some needs to have higher self-concept the nursing profession has a special status in this regard. This issue is more important in nurses working in intensive care units because in addition to high experience and sufficient knowledge, they should have special clinical skills and personality. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the nurses’ professional self-concept and its’ dimensions scores in nurses working in intensive care units in hospitals affiliated to medical sciences universities of Tehran in 2014.Materials and methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted on 205 qualified nurses working in Intensive care units in hospitals affiliated to medical sciences universities of Tehran. Data was collected using a questionnaire which consisted of demographic information and “Nurse Self-Concept Questionnaire” (cowin, 2001), after confirming their validity and reliability. The range of total score was 36-288. The SPSS software version 22 was used to analyze the data.Results: The mean score of professional self-concept was 197.20±23.67. The highest and the lowest score were respectively related to dimensions of communication and nurse general self-concept (self-esteem) with the mean of 41.34±4.93 and 16.23±6.96.Conclusion: however intensive care unit nurses gained relatively high professional self-concept score, but it seems that it was far from ideal. Also nurses working in intensive care unit gained the lowest score from nurse general self-concept dimension that it represented the weakness of nurses in this context. Therefor the necessity of education and preparation of nurses, in order to have higher professional self-concept and self-esteem was felt.

Background and aim: Nowadays, infertility and attitudes toward it, cause issues like depression, helplessness and anxiety. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between general health with happiness, inferiority feeling, and marital conflict in infertile women.Methods and Materials: In this cross-sectional analytical study, 100 infertile women selected by convenience sampling. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), the oxford happiness scale, inferiority feeling and Kansas Marital Conflict Scale (KMCS) were used as data gathering tools. The Validity of the questionnaires were determined by the content and face validity. The reliability of the questionnaires was determined using the internal consistency method. The calculated Cronbach’s alpha for general health questionnaire, happiness, inferiority feeling and the marital conflicts scale were 88%, 93%, 76%, and 95% respectively. Data was analyzed using SPSS-16 software by a Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression.Results: 100 infertile women 18 - 43 years old with an average age of 29.3 were studied.55% of women had moderate levels of economic conditions and only 6% of them were referred to a psychologist or psychiatrist. The general health of the women with a minimum of 32 and maximum of 87 and a mean (56.14) was at moderate level. The results showed that there were significant relationship between general health, happiness and inferiority feeling (p<0.01), while there was no significant relationship between marital conflict and general health. Regression analysis showed that happiness and inferiority feeling with respect to the beta coefficient (-0.56, 0.21) can vary significantly predict their general health.Conclusion: General health of infertile women could be affected by the happiness and inferiority feeling. According to the results, it seems that professional assistance from psychologists and clinical psychiatrists is useful in helping infertile patients to cope better with problems caused by infertility.

Background and Aim: Menopause is an important issue in the field of reproductive and women's health. Social support can help to reduce post-menopausal women' problems and improve their quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between social support and the experiences of menopause.Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive correlative study that was conducted in 2013 in Mashhad, Iran.220 postmenopausal women aged 40 to 65 years were recruited through quota and community-based sampling. Data collection tools included demographic questionnaire, multidimensional social support MSPSS, and assessing the experiences of women in menopause. Validity and reliability of the questionnaires was reviewed and approved before use. Data was analyzed by SPSS 21 software using variance analysis, Spearman correlation coefficient and regression analysis at significant level of 0.05.Results: The average score of MSPSS was 59.73±15.74 and 60% of women perceived high social support. The average score of "physical and psychological experiences of women" was 33.5±18.1. There was a significant negative correlation between social support and the importance people of life (Family, neighbor, doctor, ….) with women's experiences of menopause (r=-0.19, p=0.006 and r=-0.16, p=0.01). Also, the “important people” dimension of perceived social support was a better predictor for women's experiences in menopause.Conclusions: Perceived social support has a positive impact on menopausal experiences. "Important people" dimension was a better predictor for the women' experiences in menopause.

Background and Aim: In all over the world, sexual activities are increasing among single youth. Personality as a determining factor can influence all human personal and social behaviors. Studies show that some Personality traits may contribute to high-risk sexual behaviors. The aim of the current study was the assessment of correlation between high risk sexual behaviors and emotional intelligence.Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive study with non-probability and convenience sampling method. The samples of research were girls and women 65 years-old with high-risk sexual behaviors that were referred to a female forensic unit in Tehran in 2014.The research instruments included a researcher-made questionnaire to assess high risk sexual behaviors and Bar-on emotional intelligence questionnaire. The validity of high risk sexual behavior questionnaire was determined using the content validity index and content validity ratio. The test-retest method was selected to determine the reliability and stability of high-risk sexual behavior questionnaires. Then, Interrater reliability was determined by the kappa coefficient. The questioner had a suitable level of reliability. Data analysis was performed using Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients, logistic regression and independent T test.Results: The most frequent sexual behavior was vaginal sex. Regression analysis showed that there were negative correlations between vaginal intercourse with happiness and self‐actualization as some emotional intelligence components. there were also negative correlations between oral sex with problem solving, self‐actualization, realism, stress tolerance and independence as other emotional intelligence components (p<0.05). There is only a significant positive correlation between empathy component of emotional intelligence and vaginal intercourse (p<0.05).Discussion and conclusions: The results support of the impact of emotional intelligence and its components on high-risk sexual behaviors among girls and women.