Iran Journal of Nursing
Year:2007 | Volume:20 | Issue:49|Papers Count:10

Background & Aim: Exposure to blood-borne pathogens by needlestick injuries (NSIs) continues to pose significant risks to healthcare workers (HCW). The number of contaminated NSIs sustained by HCW primarily due to underreporting, is still unclear. Therefore the objective of this study was to investigate the Needlestick Injuries and the rate of reporting among Clinical Nurses.Material &Method: This cross-sectional study was conducted among nurses in one teaching hospital and one nonteaching hospital in Tehran. To investigate the causes of these injuries 111nurses with using purposive sampling method, were contributed and voluntarily and anonymously filled in a questionnaire on the demographic and professional characteristics. In this study, data regarding the frequency of contaminated needlestick and the rate of reporting the injuries and the reasons for not reporting such injuries were collected.Results: According to the findings, 54.1% (n=60) of the subjects had no contaminated injuries and 45.9% (n=51) had experienced at least one contaminated NSI in their period of clinical practices. Thirty-four percent of the nurses experienced 58 contaminated needlestick injuries in the past 12 months (Crude Incidence Rate: 0.52 NSI/nurse/year). Only 36.8% (n=14) of the nurses who had experienced NSIs in the previous year, were reported all exposures to the needlestiks. The reasons for not reporting injuries consisted of dissatisfaction with follow up (33.3%), low probabilities of the infection risk of the injury source (29.2%), to be busy (12.5%), not familiar with reporting process (16.7%) and low perception of risks (8.3%).Conclusion: This study suggests that the frequency of NSIs and the rate of underreporting among Iranian nurses are considerable and it needs to be further investigated. Interventions such as continuous training of nursing staff about standard reporting protocols and precautions of the post-exposure procedures might improve reporting of such injuries among nurses.

Background & Aim: Women’s satisfaction from prenatal care, can lead to increase using the services and ultimately improve pregnancy outcomes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between women’s satisfaction with prenatal care services and demographic characteristics of the pregnant women.Material & Method: This study used a descriptive correlational design. Data collection instrument was a questionnaire. The satisfaction dimensions were the accessibility, coordination, communication of the personnel, availability, and the received information regarding prenatal care, quality, and the cost of the services. The study subjects consisted of 530 Iranian women living in the west of Tehran, who gave birth and attended to the health clinics, at 6 week postnatal period.Results: Most of the women (69.8%) had good level of satisfaction with provided prenatal care and 21.9% were satisfied at the level of excellence. The women were more satisfied with accessibility, received information, communication, quality of services. There was a statistically significant positive association between education levels, economical status, and health situation during pregnancy and women’s satisfaction with prenatal care services (P<0.05).Women with high education levels, good economical status and optimum health situation during pregnancy were more satisfied. There were statistically significant association between the waiting time for prenatal care visits and the number of prenatal visits and women’s satisfaction with prenatal care services (P<0.05). Women’s satisfactions with the services were increased with the frequency of prenatal care visits, but their satisfactions were decreased as the waiting time was prolonged.Conclusion: According to the study findings, the majority of the subjects (90.7%) were satisfied with the received prenatal care. Therefore they could use health services continuously and appropriately; so encouraging the other women to use the services frequently would be necessary.

Background & Aim: Nurses with the nature of their own career and profession confronting with many issues and tension in their work environment; and different work shifts in day and night time make them susceptible to sleep disorders, particularly where the majority of nurses are females who have the responsibilities of caring of their families and other social and professional roles which limits the period of their sleep time. Therefore, this study is conducted with the purpose of comparison of sleep quality in two groups of nurses with and without rotation work shift hours.Material & Method: This study was a descriptive comparative design with the sample size of 520 nurses that were selected with the stratified sampling method who have been working in different work shift hours in teaching hospitals of Iran University of Medical Sciences. The data collection instrument was Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index (PSQI).Results: The findings showed that %69.6 of the subjects had a good quality of sleep and the remainder (% 30.4) had a bad sleep quality. About % 56.2 of the subjects with the rotation work shift had a good sleep quality and %43.8 had a bad sleep quality. The result of Chi-Square test showed that there is a significant difference between sleep quality among nurses with fixed and unfixed work shift hours. In other words, the nurses without rotation work shifts had better sleep quality than the nurses with rotation work shifts.Conclusion: Proper and efficient management of nursing work settings and accurate planning in work shifts are suggested to reduce nurses' sleep disorders. Improving sleep quality in nurses could increase their general health and ultimately promote the quality of caring in patients.

Background & Aim: Mechanical ventilation after open-heart surgery is one of the essential practices in patients. Awareness about some variables which are associated with extubation time; is necessary for decision making about the appropriate time for this procedure. The purpose of this study was to determine whether sex, age and postoperative homodynamic status are associated with extubation time after Coronary Artery Bipass Graft (CABG).Material & Method: The research was conducted in a university-affiliated hospital in Tehran. In this cross-sectional study, data were collected by reviewing of 93 records of eligible patients by convenience sampling method. Data collecting tool was a checklist and data analyzed by chi-square and regression analysis.Results: Forty three percent of patients were extubated in 6 hours or less and 57% of them were extubated in more than 6 hours after surgery. The mean of intubation time was 7.19±3.00 hours, with a range of 3.00-18.25 hours. Age was the only variable that was found to be statistically significant to extubation time (P<0.05).Conclusion: According to the findings, age is associated with intubation time after CABG. Therefore, nurses should take into the account this factor to make decision regarding the time of extubation in older patients.

Background & Aim: Patient education by nurses can be one of the best strategies for optimum self- care at home. The objective of this study is pathologic study of patient education process and answering to these questions: 1- What is the process of patient education? 2- What are the pathogens of correct implementation of patient education?Material & Method: This was a qualitative research with using content analysis method. Sample size included twenty B.S nurses, three MS nurses, ten nurse students and ten hospitalized patients. The setting of the study was schools of Nursing and Midwifery and 2 general hospitals of Arak University of Medical Sciences. Data gathering method was semi - structured interview. Analysis of data was done based on content analysis method.Results: The study Findings showed that factors related to: 1- Curriculum planning, in Schools of Nursing and Midwifery 2- Patient education courses 3- Insufficient attention to nurses conditions 4- Insufficient attention to educational, cultural and habitual needs of patients and their families 5- Educational management 6- Attitude of participants to patient education, were key issues in the process of patient education that was related to inappropriate implementation of patient education in clinical settings.Conclusion: Patient education and nurses' role in this regard were significant factors to be considered. The pathogens which were effective on incorrect implementation of patient education decrease the quality of care nursing. Applying the new curriculum planning can empower nurses on patient education. Providing in service training for clinical nurses and patient education follow up by clinical and educational managers can lead patient health promotion.

Background & Aim: There is increasing rate of tendency of leaving elderly people to live in nursing homes in recent years. It is suggested that, the common view of the elderly people towards living in nursing homes is known as "the final sign of failure in the life'. It seems that this attitude has a negative influence on adaptation of elders when confronting with a challenge. Therefor, the understanding of the emotional experiences of elderly people to spend their life in nursing homes is important. In this study, the objective was to explore the emotional experiences of elders who living in nursing homes. The research question is “How is structure and meaning of the emotional experiences of elderly people in the Process of Residency in nursing homes?”Material & method: A qualitative phenomenological approach was used in this study with applied purposive sampling amongst elderly residents in private and public nursing homes in Isfahan. Sampling was continued till data saturation and the resulting sample size consisted 10 participants. The data was collected by in-depth interviews. Field notes were used for completing data collection process and Colaizzi's method was applied for data analysis. The rigor of present study was based on the transferability and credibility.Results: Two themes were extracted from the data (structural components of experience), including: Residents’ emotional experiences during nursing home life and Resident’s emotional experiences at the entrance in the nursing home.Conclusion: In this study, older people have shown various emotions to relocation and residency in nursing homes. Elders, with different context and different history in their life, had unique experiences. In addition, it is essential to pay attention to social, financial, mental, spiritual and physical needs of elders as components of holistic care. In fact because concerning only physical needs of elderly people can not lead to promote hopeful, meaningful and purposeful life for the elderly people.

Introduction & Aim: "Caring" is the central concept of nursing role, but in the current health care systems with huge advances in technology and scarce recourses as well as the issue of nursing personnel shortage, this aspect of nursing role would be questionable. Accordingly, this study was conducted to examine the relationship between nurse caring behaviors from patients’ perspectives and patient satisfaction.Material & Method: This study was a descriptive-correlational design, with 250 patients, who where hospitalized in an educational center of Iran University of medical sciences. The subjects were selected by quota sampling method. The data collection instruments were Caring Behaviors Inventory (CBI) and Patient Satisfaction Instrument (PSI).Results: The study findings showed that, there were significant correlations between caring behaviors including respectfulness to others, assurance of human presence, positive connectedness, professional knowledge & skill, attentiveness to other's experience and patient satisfaction including Trust, Patient education and Technical- Professional care. Moreover, there was a strong, positive correlation between all variables of the nurse caring behaviors and patient satisfaction (r=0.72, P=0.000).Conclusion: Positive relationship between nurse caring behaviors and patient satisfaction indicates that compassionate nurses with humanistic feelings and art and spending more time for direct caring for patients, play important roles on patient satisfaction. Therefore increasing the time period of direct caring by increasing the number of practice nurses and concerning humanistic aspects of patient care would reduce the levels of patients dissatisfaction.

Introduction & Aim: Cutaneous Leishmaniasis is the second common parasitic disease in Iran. According to several studies, insufficient knowledge of mothers about the prevention strategies related to occurrence of the disease in their children is significant. Therefore, educating of the rural families by home visit program could be effective approach to prevent Cutaneous Leishmaniasis. The objective of the present study was to determine the effect of designed home visit program on promoting preventive behaviors regarding Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in rural families of Tang Hanna district in Neyriz.Material & Method: The study was a quasi-experiemental design which 60 families with at least one child (with 6-12 years old) were randomly selected, with (no Cutaneous Leishmaniasis) from seven rural areas and assigned to two groups of experimental and control groups and matched to demographic indicators (age, education, income...). Data collection tools included a questionnaire and observational- interviewing checklist about preventive behaviors. The Pretest phase was performed in two groups during 3 meetings. Then, home visit program was performed in experimental group for 4-5 meetings. The duration of each meeting was about 45 minutes for the period of one month and half. Then the post test phase was performed in the two groups, after intervention.Result: According to the results, independent t- test and Chi-squire test indicated that there was no significant difference between experimental group and control group (in demographic variables such as: age, sex, education, …) before the intervention. The t-test and Chi-square test indicated that there as not any significant differences between experimental and control group (P>0.05). Paired t-test and independent t- test indicated that there was a significant difference between before and after intervention about families performance in the experimental group (P<0.001) compared to the control group. Also Independent t-test indicated that there was a significant difference between experimental group and control group after intervention in some preventive behaviors regarding Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (P<0.001).Conclusion: According to the findings, it can be claimed that using a designed home visit program could be an effective approach in the promoting of preventive behaviors about Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in the subjects. Moreover the results indicate that home-visit programs seem appropriate strategy for improving families performance in order to prevent Cutaneous Leishmaniasis.