Iran Journal of Nursing
Year:2011 | Volume:24 | Issue:72|Papers Count:9

Background & Aim: Quality of life has been defined in a variety of ways depending on the context and the orientation of scholars. The purpose of the this study was to evaluate caregivers' quality of life and also to investigate the correlation between quality of life of caregivers and their satisfaction with social work section services.Material & Methods: The present study employed a correlational design, with 125 caregivers of Iranian children with cancer. It was conducted at hospitals covered by MAHAK. Quality of life in caregivers was measured by the Iranian version of WHO, QOL-BREF. Satisfaction of social work section services was measured by questioner including six services. Data was analyzed by t-Test and ANOVA using SPSS-PC (v.17).Results: The scores of all dimensions of caregivers’ quality of life were lower than general population. The difference was significant in physical (p<0.001), psychological (p=0.000) and environmental (p<0.001) dimensions. The lowest score and highest difference was found in psychological dimension of quality of life. The highest satisfaction rate was related to supporting the child and family and the highest dissatisfaction was related to services given to family. The highest positive correlation was found between satisfaction with services for child and psychological dimension of care givers’ quality of life (r=0.28, p<0.001).Conclusion: Understanding of factors that associate with caregivers’ quality of life is of central importance to the improvement of care, treatment process and for effective interventions for children with cancer. These findings provide useful information for managers to enhance quality of services and to enhance caregivers’ satisfaction.

Background & Aim: Recognition of strengths and weaknesses of evaluation content will help the educational manager to provide the possibility of evaluation quality improvement. The aim of this study was to determine the most important priorities of teacher performance evaluation from within students’ and faculties’ perspective.Material & Methods: It was a descriptive cross- sectional study. All of the students (n=245) and faculty members (n=26) of the School of Nursing and Midwifery affiliated with Zahedan University of Medical Sciences were recruited during the academic year 2008-2009. Data was collected using questionnaire with five subscales including teaching skills, individual characteristics of teachers, communication skills, evaluation skills, and educational principles and rules and analyzed by SPSS-PC (v.13).Results: The most important priorities from the teachers’ and students’ perspective were related to the domains of teaching skills, teacher mastery, creating motivation and students’ participation respectively. There were significant difference in the mean scores of teachers mastery (p=0.02), students’ participation (p=0.01), and presentation of new subjects (p=0.007) between the two groups. There was also significant difference in the mean scores of teaching skills domains, individual characteristics domain and evaluation skills domain between two groups (p=0.01).Conclusion: considering the difference between the teachers’ and students’ perspective regarding some criteria of teachers evaluation, designing an evaluation tool according to the viewpoints of the two groups is recommended. Teachers’ attention to the students’ priorities in teachers’ evaluation would help to promote teaching quality and students’ satisfaction.

Background & Aims: clinical decision making as the pillar of professional nursing practice sets nurses apart from other non- professional health care staff. Clinical decisions made by nurses affect quality care more than other factors and contribute to identification of patients’ needs and the best nursing interventions. This study aims to determine demographic factors involved in nurses clinical decision making.Material & methods: it was a descriptive cross- sectional study. The sample consisted of 285 nurses working in selected wards of hospitals affiliated to Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. They were recruited by stratified random sampling. Data was collected by a check list and Participation in Decision Activities Questionnaire (PDAQ) and analyzed by SPSS-PC (v.15).Results: there were significant relationships between nurses clinical decision making and their age (p= 0.003) sex (p=0.001) ward (p=0.002) employment status (p=0.005) and years in work (p=0.025).Conclusion: considering the factors involved in nurse’s clinical decision making, nurse manager could facilitate their participation in this process.

Background & Aim: Pediatric and adult oncology wards have special characteristics which may lead to different levels of fatigue in nurses. The aim of this study was to compare fatigue and its related factors in pediatric and adult oncology nurses.Materials & Methods: This descriptive comparative study was conducted with a sample of 215 nurses working in pediatric and adult oncology wards in selected educational hospitals of Tehran. Nurses were recruited by convenience sampling. Data was collected by "Questionnaire for Psychological & Social factors at work", "The Nursing Stress Scale", and "Oncology Nurses Fatigue Scale". Data analysis was performed using SPSS and T-test.Results: There were significant statistical differences in all three dimensions of fatigue between the two groups of nurses (p<0.001). There were also a significant difference between the mean scores of emotional factors related to nurses’ fatigue (p<0.001). However no significant difference was found between the mean scores of environmental and social- organizational factors related to nurses’ fatigue (p>0.05).Conclusion: Regarding the differences between emotional factors related to fatigue in pediatric and adult oncology nurses, it is recommended to pay more attention to the special features of pediatric and adult oncology wards that may lead to nurses’ fatigue.

Background & Aim: Regarding the increasing number of elderly people, their quality of life becomes more important. Spiritual health is one of the important aspects of health status that is often neglected. This study aims to identify the relationship between spiritual well-being and quality of life among elderly people residing in Kahrizak Senior House.Material & Methods: It was a descriptive, correlational study. The sample included 141 elderly people residing in Kahrizak Senior House who recruited by convenience sampling. Data was collected by Spiritual Well-Being Index (SWBI) and Short Form Quality of Life (SF36) and analyzed by Pearson correlation coficient, ANOVA, and t-test using SPSS-PC (v-16) Results: The mean score of quality of life was (50.36±11.3). Women’s quality of life was significantly lower than men (P=0.000). The mean score of spiritual well-being was (96.26±17.93). There was a positive correlation between spiritual well-being and quality of life (P=0.008).Conclusion: regarding the lower levels of quality of life especially in women elderly, more attention should be paid to this group of society. Awareness of the importance of spiritual well-being in caring of these people is recommended.

Background & Aims: Child illness and hospitalization is considered as one of the main sources of stress and anxiety for family. Parents should have the peace of spirit to provide adequate care and protection of children. This study investigates the fears and needs of mothers during their child hospitalization and their received nursing support.Material & Methods: It was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. One hundred of mothers of children who were hospitalized at least for 24 hours in a pediatric ward in Mahabad city were recruited by random sampling. The mothers’ fears were assessed by a researcher- made questionnaire. parental needs were assessed by “parents’ needs of hospitalized children” questionnaire. Data related to nursing support of mothers were collected by the Nurse Parent Support Tool (NPST). SPSS-PC (v.11.5) was used for data analysis.Results: Environmental factors and lack of pre-hospitalization programs were ranked as the most and least stress provoking factors by the mothers respectively. The needs related to sick child was ranked as the most important need from mothers’ point of view and the trust needs were ranked as highly met. The needs for other family members ranked as the least important need and also were met at the lowest level. Mothers received the most caring support (2.37±0.39) and the least informational support (1.44±0.69) from nurses. The mean score of total nurse support was 1.73±0.82.Conclusion: Identification of stress factors in order to reduce the concerns of parents, meeting mother's needs along with the needs of children and providing the necessary facilities to provide parent's comfort should be considered by hospital planners and their managers.

Background: The factors involve in Leukemia are not fully understood. However, research has shown the relationship between this disorder and some risk factors. The aim of this study was to determine risk factors involved in acute lymphoblastic leukemia and its most prevalent clinical manifestations in children residing in Khorasan province.Materials and Methods: It was a case–control study. The adequate sample size was 100 cases and 400 controls. Controls were matched with cases regarding their sex, age and habitation. Data was collected by face to face interview with patients' mothers and the questionnaires were completed by the investigator. Data was analyzed by conditional logistic regression using SPSS-PC (v.14).Results: According to the findings of this study, maternal use of oral contraceptives, living in proximity to high voltage power lines, in-utero ionizing radiation exposure, pesticide exposure in fathers and paternal occupation and parental smoking had a significant relation with this type of cancer (p<0.05).the most prevalent mitial clinical manifestations were lethargy and weakness, fever, leg pain, cervical lymphadenopathy, bleeding, abdominal pain and cold symptoms respectively.Conclusion: According to the results of this study, it seems that environmental factors play an important role in etiology of this kind of cancer. Knowledge abort this fact helps us to find appropriate ways to prevent this disease in children.

Background & Aims: Postnatal depression is a major public health problem. With due attention to potential side effects of it on mother and family, determining and reduction of any of the factors can decrease prevalence of this disorder. This study was done to determine the predisposing factors of postpartum depression.Material & Methods: It was a cross- sectional study with multistage cluster random sampling of 560 women referred to Tabriz health centers 2 mounts after delivery. Data was collected by Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Data related to demographic characteristics, mother- newborn characteristics and social support was also gathered by a research- made tool. Data was analyzed by SPSS version 16 by using descriptive statistics, Chi square, one way ANOVA, independent T test and logistic regression.Results: The results of chi square test showed a significant association between mother age, education, illness of mother during pregnancy, type and number of delivery and desired fetal sex andpostpartum depression(P<0.05). The results of independent T test also showed a significant relationship between illness of newborn, unplanned pregnancy andpostpartum depression (P<0.05). The results of one-way ANOVA indicated that the relation between lack of mother’s readiness to accept the responsibility of newborn and husband’s feelings about recent pregnancy andpostpartum depression was significant (P<0.05). Linear regression showed the most important risk factors of postpartum depression as financial status, educational level, unwanted pregnancy, stress level, newborn illness, and mother’s lack of willingness to accept responsibility (p<0.05).Conclusion: Approaches that will lead to increased willingness of mothers to realize the predisposing factors of this disorder, as well as family support and also social support by health care providers can be effective in preventing postpartum depression.