Iranian Journal of Nursing Research
Year:2008 | Volume:3 | Issue:8-9|Papers Count:12

Introduction: Respecting to individuals’ autonomy is a basic need of patients which nurses have an important role in fulfilling it. The study aimed at assessing the patients’ perception of getting their autonomy respected during nursing care.Method: Census sampling was used to select 187 patients who were admitted to one of the three hospitals affiliated to Tabriz University of Medical Science. Data was gathered using a questionnaire measuring patients’ perceptions of getting their autonomy respected, in two subscales: getting information and participation in decision making. Data was analysis with Mann - Whitney U test, Kruskal - Wallis H test and Spearman correlation coefficient.Results: Most of patients believed that nurses’ respect to their autonomy through giving information and participation in decision making aspects was low. Furthermore, results showed there was correlation between patients’ perception of their health, their needs for nursing care and their age with their perception of getting respect to their autonomy during nursing care.Conclusion: Patients revealed that their autonomy during nursing care is not respected. Their perception was positively improved by their increased need to nursing care. Educating the nursing staff on importance of autonomy in nursing care is recommended.

Introduction: Research utilization is the link between research and clinical practice which promotes the quality of care. Research - based practice is the main criteria to demonstrate how nurses implement the findings of research and how provided healthcare is based on research findings. In spite of the increased outputs of research, research implementation hasn’t gone so fare compare to growing nursing research quantitatively. Now, it’s time to shift the nursing focus to empower the research implementation in care. The present study is a review article aimed at describing the strategies used in developing research based practice in nursing.Method: The published articles and theses reports discussing research utilization and evidence-based practice in nursing during last decade were systematically searched. The review was carried out using the databases of ISI, CINAHL and MEDLINE which cover a wide range of journals and literature. The literature in Persian was searched in SID databases. 51 research studies regarding strategies in research based practice in nursing were chosen to be included in the study.Results: The results revealed the strategies recommended based on research implementation’ models and two main concepts of acceptance and preparation. Using these strategies could facilitate research utilization in nursing.Conclusion: Successful research - based practice requires a suitable, supportive for creativity and motivating environment, having resources available and valuing persons’ performances. Accessing the valid research outcomes, having competency in conveying and utilizing the results in practice and a supportive context which creates creative atmosphere and research mind is demanded in implementing research - based practice in nursing.

Introduction: High quality of work life is known as basic prerequisite of empowering human resources in healthcare system. Nurses’ productivity plays an important role in organizations’ success. Knowing the correlation between quality of work life and productivity, managers can improve staffs’ productivity by promoting nurses’ quality of work life. This study aimed at assessing relationships between quality of work life and productivity of nurses.Methods: This cross - sectional correlation study was conducted with a random sample of 360 nurses drawn from hospitals affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Data were gathered through self - administered questionnaires containing work quality of life questionnaire (45 questions on a likert rating scale) and productivity questionnaire (25 questions on a likert rating scale). Both questionnaires were developed by the researchers. All statistics were computed using the SPSS software (version 13) with pearson and K square tests.Results: Findings revealed that 31.9% of the nurses considered their productivity level, moderate. 41.9% of them reported their work quality of life at moderate level. Only 10% of them believed that their work quality of life is good. The results demonstrated statistically significant correlation between work quality of life and productivity level of nurses (r=0.357, P<0.001).Conclusion: Since just 0.1 of nurses reported their productivity and quality of work life good, managers should apply the appropriate strategies to promote nurses’ quality of work life and provide the ground for improving the quality of care and productivity of nurses.

Introduction: Heart ischemic diseases are the most common heart problems and the most important cause of death, all over the world which affect the patients’ quality of life. These diseases involve many problems for patients and cost a lot for the society. Most of conducted studies in this regards, have assessed the general quality of life. The present study, therefore, was design to assess general and specific quality of life of patients with heart ischemic diseases in Kashan.Method: Recruiting a cross - sectional study design, 500 patients were selected to participate in the study among who were admitted to one of Kashan’s health centers, diagnosed with myocardial infarction (based on their clinical and para - clinical criteria), had coronary arteries complications (based on angiography) or had a history of PTCA or CABG operation and were under treatment. Data were collected using SF-36 Index (short form) for assessing general quality of life and SAQ index to assess the specific quality of life. The data were analyzed using K2 and Fisher statistics test.Results: The results showed that the average age was 60.5±12.5 years old. %55.8 of participants were male. Most of the participants had a history of heart attack. Quality of life was mostly moderate and good. The patients with a history of CABG had better quality of life than patients undergone PTCA. The average of general quality of life was 112.5±24 (interpreted as good) and 59.8±14.9 for specific quality of life (interpreted as good). Sex, history of heart disease, older age, insufficient education, educational level, heart attacks rates and having a history of diseases had impact on their quality of life.Conclusion: General and specific quality of life, were demonstrated to be good in participants which was better in patients who had experienced heart attacks and angina than those undergone angioplasty. The study calls for more attention and education to patients with older age, suffering from other diseases, more pervious heart attacks and females.

Introduction: Nursing burnout is a syndrome, causing negative self image, negative attitude toward job and disrupted communication with the clients, could lead to a severe decline of healthcare qualities. Healthcare sectors are among the most important fields of stable development in any human society, which need healthy, enthused and motivated practitioners. Nursing staffs in private sectors encounter with numerous problems and job stress in their working environments which can result their burnout. The aim of present study was to identify the influential factors on burnout in nurses of private hospitals in Tehran.Method: The study was carried out using a descriptive-analytic method. 505 nurses were participated in the study from different private hospitals in Tehran including Toos, Pastor no, Laleh, Tehran clinic and Kasra hospitals. Data were gathered through the questionnaires containing demographic information, scale of nursing burnout’s factors and Maslach nursing burnout. Data was analyzed using SPSS package.Results: The participants reported their high emotional exhaustion (6.36%), high depersonalization (1.81%) and feeling low competent (23.63%). The most important factor contributing in nurses’ burnout in assessed private sectors was the inappropriateness between the income and the workload and its difficulties.Conclusion: Considering the results and the importance of nursing job, attempts to reduce nurses’ problems such as financial, social and managerial problems is important. The authorities should support nurses by preparing an appropriate environmental, personnel and management conditions.

 Introduction: Cardiovascular diseases and their related complications, disability and mortality are proliferating in Iran. Developing and applying native models can be an important strategy to control such complications, more effectively. Organizational Culture Improvement Model of patient education was developed through a native qualitative research study which was tested in this study. The study aimed at investigating the effect of Organizational Culture Improvement Model of patient education on anxiety and satisfaction of patient with coronary artery disease.Method: Using quasi - experimental method, 70 patients with coronary artery diseases purposely and five nurses through randomized sampling were selected. Data were collected using “The Eshpel Burgers’ anxiety questionnaire” and “patients’ satisfaction questionnaire”.Results: Findings demonstrated significant statistically reduced level of anxiety [before 58.81 and after 30.15 in intervention group and / before 58.74 and after 54.36 in control group] and increased patients’ satisfaction [before 23.86 and after 52.57 in intervention group and / before 24.88 and after 26.7 in control group] in intervention group, compared to control group, after the intervention.Conclusion: Organizational Culture Improvement Model of patient education can have impacts on anxiety and satisfaction in patient with coronary artery disease.

Introduction: Parents have been used to staying with their sick children in hospital for more than a decade. Nowadays, parents are inevitable elements of child care in hospitals. The parent-nurse relationship is considered to be a cornerstone of high quality pediatric nursing care, however there is little knowledge on the quality of nurse - parent communication in internal pediatric wards. The study, therefore, was designed to explore experiences of parents and nurses regarding parent - nurse communication in hospitals.Method: Using inductive thematic analysis method, face - to - face interviews were conducted with 14 parents and 10 nurses drawn from two pediatric hospitals in Tehran.Results: Five major themes were identified namely: downgrading the communication with parent or child, restricting informing parents, taking lessons from parent-nurse relationships, parent - to - parent emotional support and factors contributing in communication downgrading. The results showed that lack of time and high - load work due to imbalance between human resource's demand and supply, nurses’ insufficient interpersonal skills and the nature of physician - nurse relationship are the factors contributing in downgrading the parents - nurses communication.Conclusion: The study revealed that time shortage due to understaffing and nurses’ insufficient interpersonal competences led to downgrading the communication between parents and nurses and consequently, not meeting parents’ supportive and informative needs. Given that parents are usually their child’s bedside presented and enormous contacts of nursing staffs and parents are unavoidable, developing nurses’ communication skills through continued education and role models have vital importance.

Introduction: Pain management is one of nursing implementations and tasks. The present study aimed at assessing the nurses’ problems in applying nonpharmacological pain management for children.Method: This descriptive research was carried out in some selected hospitals of Saveh. All nurses (n=30) working in pediatric, pediatric emergency and neonatal intensive care units (NICU) of Shahid Modares and Shahid Chamaran hospitals in Saveh were recruited in the study, through consensus method. Data were collected using questionnaires of demographic information and knowledge, self-reported checklist of pain management strategies used by nurses, checklist of nonpharmacological pain managements used by nurses from the researcher perspective, self - report questionnaire of nurses’ problems in administrating non-pharmacological pain managements for children and suggested strategies to solve the problems, from their viewpoints. The instruments were validated and made reliable.Results: Most of participants were between 25-29 years old (40%), graduated during the years 2000 and 2005 (73%), haven’t got any training concerning these methods (90%) and acknowledged that they need some of the methods based on their experiences (86.7%). Distraction was the most frequent pain management method (76.7%). Just 3.3% of nurses, knew non- pharmacological pain management methods. Nurses’ identified problems in using such methods were the environmental problems and lack of equipments (91.6%), educational problems like cultural problems, no training during their education and not having continued education during their nursing work (82.2%), management problems like lack of motivation (70%) and personnel problems like overload shifts, low income, workload, time shortage, physicians/nurses’ resistance and job problems (25.4%).Conclusion: The study recommends the followings as good strategies to meet nurses’ problems: Considering the suggested strategies of nurses to overcome these difficulties, a stronger supervision system (Pain committee) - with the tasks of supervising the pain process, environmental problems and lack of equipments, etc (short-term strategies) , re - evaluating the nursing curriculums in bachelor and master degree in order to add some information regarding non-pharmacological pain management (mid - term strategies).

Introduction: Without any doubt, one of the most important factors to achieve the goals in organization is employing right management methods. According to many experts, management of health care settings is considered as an important teamwork, nowadays. Therefore, providing an appropriate ground in health care settings for participation demands identifying the barriers to participation and the ways to overcome them. This study aimed at assessing the barriers to employing participative management in nursing units of Arak educational hospitals in 2007.Method: In this descriptive study, 26 nurse managers and 87 nurses working in one of three educational hospitals in Arak, were given a questionnaire to complete. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics.Results: It was revealed that 56/99% of the participants identified organizational factors as the most important barriers to employing participative management. In addition, most of participants (84/1%) hadn’t passed any course on participative management, and 76/1% of them reported their agreement with participative atmosphere in organization and the rest agreed to some extent. In another words, there was no objection regarding this issue.Conclusion: The study indicated that the most important barrier to employing participative management was organizational factors. The next important barriers were personnel’ cultural, individual-managerial and personal- staff barriers. Managers’ development for competency - oriented management, not only can help to get ride of the barriers, but also results in employing participative management or choosing an appropriate management style in organization.

Introduction: The most important aims of internal evaluation are quality improvement, assurance, and enhancement of educational programs. The study was conducted to examine achieving the goals of internal evaluation in nursing department of The University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, during 1997-2007 Method: A longitudinal descriptive research method was recruited to conduct the study. The statistical population was nursing department of The University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences during a period of 1997-2007. Faculty members, heads of nursing department, students, graduated students and their employers (n=129) were included in the study. Data were collected using a questionnaire developed by the researchers and documents’ assessment forms. A committee of faculty members was organized for evaluation, based on the objectives as well as factors and indicators of quality enhancement. Then, considering the results of internal evaluation, a program was designed for continuous quality improvement of education and research. The program was implemented for over ten years and was constantly revised. Finally, the department status was re-evaluated and the results were compared with the status in the baseline year to produce the final results.Results: The research findings showed that through implementing the internal evaluation and applying the findings, the department experienced an increasing trend in quality improvements of key indicators. In addition, assessment of achieving the objectives and quality indicators of the department, based on the seven factors under investigation, demonstrated the impact of internal evaluation on continuous quality improvement.Conclusion: Implementing the internal evaluation could portray ‘existing’ and ‘ideal’ statuses of the department and illustrate their strengths and weaknesses, besides raising contribution of faculty members. Applying the executive strategies and suggestions, drawn from internal evaluation, desirability of evaluation indicators and quality of education and research in nursing department were improved.