Survey of Skin-to-Skin Contact with Obstetrics and Pediatric Nurses

Skin-to-skin, or chest-to-chest, contact (SSC) between newborns and their mothers is known as kangaroo mother care. The physiological and psychological benefits of SSC for infants and mothers are well established. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends practicing SSC for term and preterm newborns. However, in Saudi Arabia, SSC is not practiced as widely as recommended. There is insufficient evidence of the nurses’ knowledge and attitudes regarding SSC in Saudi Arabia. The aims of this study were to describe and determine relationships between knowledge, education, beliefs/attitudes, and the implementation of SSC in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Thank You for Your Time and Kind Suggestion Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive data were collected from 40 nurses using an English-language version of a knowledge, beliefs/attitudes, education, and implementation questionnaire used by others. Results: The mean age of the nurses was 42.4 years (SD = 3.2), with a mean experience of 12 years (SD = 2.1). The mean total score of SSC knowledge was 13.6 (SD = 2.3), the mean of total score of attitudes/beliefs was 12.3 (SD = 3.1), the SSC education mean score was 17.1 (SD = 3.4), and the SSC implementation mean score was 17.0 (SD = 4.1). In total, 55% of the nurses were not sure of the impact of SSC on brain development in neonates, 45% could not interpret infants’ responses during SSC; 67% disagreed that it was the nurses’ responsibility to facilitate SSC, 37.5% were not aware of SSC guidelines, and 47% of the nurses had not received any continuing education on SSC in their units. Pearson correlations revealed a significant association between SSC implementation and nurses’ knowledge level (r = 0.297, p = 0.031), education (r = 0.85, p = 0.015), and beliefs (r = 0.31, p = 0.024). Conclusions: Once nurses have improved their knowledge, education, and beliefs/attitudes, SSC implementation may concomitantly increase. A continuing education program and clear guidelines are needed to promote SSC adoption in practice.

Relationship between Motor and Nonmotor Symptoms and Quality of Life in Patients with Parkinson’s Disease

Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that implies a progressive and invalidating functional organic disorder, which continues to evolve till the end of life and causes different mental and physical alterations that influence the quality of life of those affected. Objective: To determine the relationship between motor and nonmotor symptoms and the quality of life of persons with PD. Methods: An analytic, descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted with patients with different degrees of PD in the Albacete Health district. The estimated sample size required was 155 patients. The instruments used for data collection included a purpose-designed questionnaire and “Parkinson’s Disease Questionnaire” (PDQ-39), which measures eight dimensions and has a global index where a higher score indicates a worse quality of life. A descriptive and bivariate analysis was conducted (SPSS® IBM 24.0). Ethical aspects: informed consent and anonymized data. Results: A strong correlation was found between the number of motor and nonmotor symptoms and global health-related quality of life and the domains mobility, activities of daily living, emotional well-being, cognitive status, and pain (p < 0.05). Receiving pharmacological treatment and taking more than four medicines per day was significantly associated with a worse quality of life (p < 0.05). Patients who had undergone surgical treatment did not show better global quality of life (p = 0.076). Conclusions: All nonmotor symptoms and polypharmacy were significantly associated with a worse global quality of life.

Characteristics of Patient Safety Incident Occurrences Reported by Japanese Homecare Nurses: A Prospective Observational Study

Patient safety incidents (PSIs) prevention is important in healthcare because PSIs affect patients negatively and increase medical costs and resource use. However, PSI knowledge in homecare is limited. To analyze patient safety issues and strategies, we aimed to identify the characteristics and contexts of PSI occurrences in homecare settings. A prospective observational study was conducted between July and November 2017 at 27 Japanese homecare nurse (HCN) agencies. HCNs at each agency voluntarily completed PSI reports indicating whether they contributed to PSIs or were informed of a PSI by the client/informal caregiver/other care provider during a period of three months. A total of 139 PSIs were analyzed, with the most common being falls (43.9%), followed by medication errors (25.2%). Among the PSIs reported to the HCN agencies, 44 were recorded on formal incident report forms, whereas 95 were reported as PSIs that required a response (e.g., injury care) but were not recorded on formal incident report forms. Most PSIs that occurred when no HCN was visiting were not recorded as incident reports (82.1%). Developing a framework/system that can accumulate, analyze, and share information on PSIs that occur in the absence of HCNs may provide insights into PSIs experienced by HCN clients.

Translation, Cultural Adaptation, and Psychometric Properties of the Life Satisfaction Index for the Third Age—Short Form (LSITA-SF12) for Use among Ethiopian Elders

(1) Background: Self-reported measures play a crucial role in research, clinical practice, and health assessment. Instruments used to assess life satisfaction need validation to ensure that they measure what they are intended to detect true variations over time. An adapted instrument measuring life satisfaction for use among Ethiopian elders was lacking; therefore, this study aimed to culturally adapt and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Life Satisfaction Index for the Third Age—Short Form (LSITA-SF12) in Ethiopia. (2) Methods: Elderly people (n = 130) in Metropolitan cities of northwestern Ethiopia answered the LSITA-SF12 in the Amharic language. Selected reliability and validity tests were examined. (3) Result: The scale had an acceptable limit of content validity index, internal consistency, test-retest, inter-rater reliabilities, and concurrent and discriminant validities. (4) Conclusion: The Amharic language version of LSITA-SF12 appeared to be valid and reliable measures and can be recommended for use in research and clinical purposes among Amharic-speaking Ethiopian elders.

Knowledge Hiding in Emergency Ambulance Healthcare Settings: Its Mediating Role in the Relationship between Organizational Support and Affective Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behaviours

Knowledge hiding—an intentional attempt to withhold or conceal knowledge from others—has been reported by recent studies to be a negative phenomenon in the workplace. Considering the importance of knowledge for organizational performance, this study intends to advance understanding by investigating the mediating role of knowledge hiding on the relationship between perceived organizational support and affective commitment as predictors and organizational citizenship behaviors and turnover intentions as outcomes. Using a cross-sectional design, the study was conducted in emergency ambulance healthcare settings on 305 medical or paramedical professionals. As indicated by structural equation modeling results, perceived organizational support and affective commitment positively predicted organizational citizenship behaviors but negatively predicted turnover intentions. Also, knowledge hiding was negatively associated with perceived organizational support, affective commitment, and organizational citizenship behaviors and positively with turnover intentions. Moreover, knowledge hiding mediated the relationship between perceived organizational support and affective commitment as predictors and organizational citizenship behaviors, respectively turnover intentions, as dependent variables.

Destructive Role of COVID-19 Fear on Nurses Performance: Mediating Role of Stress

Given its importance to psychological issues, the COVID-19 pandemic has created numerous challenges for all individuals, but healthcare professionals and particularly nursing staff are at front lines, and their performance is significantly affected. The current study relates COVID-19 fear with psychological strain, i.e., stress amongst the nursing staff. Moreover, the intervening role of COVID-19 stress between COVID-19 fear and the performance of the nursing staff has also been tested. An online survey was conducted to collect data from nurses. A total of 471 responses of nurses were received during the process of online data collection from 16 November 2020 to 30 April 2021. Results revealed the significant effect of COVID-19 fear on COVID-19 stress and the performance of nurses. Additionally, the results substantiate that COVID-19 stress mediates between COVID-19 fear and the health care performance of nurses. COVID-19 fear has become a psychological consequence that increases stress among nursing staffs. This study fills the research gap about the performance of the health care sectors, particularly with respect to COVID-19 fear and COVID-19 stress among nurses. Hence, COVID-19 fear plays a significant role in COVID-19 stress in terms of influencing the health care performance of nurses. Overall, the results give pragmatic insights for the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Coping with Hypertension among Indigenous Peoples in Brazil and the Role of the Primary Care Nurse: A Critical Review from a Transcultural Perspective

Our objective is to critically review the literature addressing the strategic role of nurses in the daily primary care of arterial hypertension in Indigenous communities in Brazil. We selected studies based on an initial keyword search of major bibliographic indexing databases for the years 2000 to 2020 and manual search. Further selection was based on topical, methodological, and thematic relevance, as well as evaluation of scholarship quality and pertinence to our chosen narrative. The literature demonstrates Indigenous peoples do not receive health services that measure up to national standards in large part due to a marked lack of academic and employer preparation for nurses operating in transcultural settings. Inequities were apparent in recurrent reports of victim-blaming, deficient clinical communication with patients, clinical malpractice, devaluation of hypertension as a problem for Indigenous peoples, insufficient intercultural training for nurses, and discrimination against Indigenous students in nursing education programs. This systemic problem needs to be addressed by universities and the Indigenous Health Care Subsystem in Brazil.

Malnutrition and Inadequate Eating Behaviour during Hospital Stay in Geriatrics—An Explorative Analyses of NutritionDay Data in Two Hospitals

(1) Background: Malnutrition in hospitalized patients is prevalent worldwide, but the severity of the issue is often underestimated by practitioners. The purpose of this study is to investigate the prevalence of malnutrition and inadequate eating behaviour in a geriatric sample. (2) Methods: Two hospitals participated with six wards on nutritionDay in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Nutritional status, food intake, and nutritional interventions were analyzed for all patients ≥ 65 years (n = 156), using the official nutritionDay questionnaires. Malnutrition risk is identified by Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST), malnutrition by the ESPEN criteria (European Society of Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism). (3) Results: According to MUST (n = 136) 16.9% (n = 23) were at medium risk of malnutrition, 33.8% (n = 46) at high risk of malnutrition, 28.1% (n = 38) were malnourished. Overall, 62.8% (n = 98) showed an inadequate eating behaviour during hospital stay. Moreover, patients with inadequate nutrition had significantly worse self-reported health statuses (p = 0.001; r = −0.276), were less able to walk on nutritionDay (p = 0.002; r = −0.255), had eaten little in the week before admission to hospital (p < 0.001; r = −0.313), and had an increased length of stay (p = 0.036; r = −0.174). (4) Conclusion: To identify malnourished patients is a significant barrier for practitioners seeking to administer specific, tailored interventions. Malnutrition screening protocols must be improved, just as nutrition monitoring in general.

Mothers’ Experiences with Child Protection Services: Using Qualitative Feminist Poststructuralism

Background: The postpartum period is often portrayed as a blissful, calm and loving time when mothers, partners and family members bond with their newborn babies. However, this time may be experienced quite differently when mothers are monitored by Child Protection Services. Having a baby under these circumstances can be very difficult and traumatizing. While all new parents require support and information to help them through the transition to parenthood and address physical and psycho-social changes, mothers who are involved with Child Protection Services require more specialized support as they encounter higher incidences of postpartum stressors and higher rates of poverty, mental illness and substance abuse. The impact of support for mothers involved with Child Protection Services is not well-understood from the perspective of mothers. Aim: The aim of the study was to understand how new mothers in Nova Scotia prioritized their postpartum needs and where they went to obtain information and support. Methods: Feminist poststructuralism was the methodology used to understand how the experiences of five mothers who accessed a family resource center and had been involved with Child Protection Services in Nova Scotia Canada had been personally, socially and institutionally constructed. Results: Themes include: (1) We are Mothers, (2) Being Red Flagged, (3) Lack of Trust, (4) Us Against Them and (5) Searching for Supportive Relationships. Conclusion: Personal stories from all participants demonstrated how they experienced stigma and stereotypes from healthcare workers and were often not recognized as mothers. They also struggled to find information, supports and services to help them keep or regain their babies.

Association between Caffeine Intake and All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality: An Analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2014 Database

Sixty-four percent of adults in America drink coffee daily, and caffeine is the main reason people tend to drink coffee habitually. Few studies have examined the association between caffeine and all-cause and cause-specific mortality. The objective of this study was to examine the association between caffeine and all-cause and cause-specific mortality using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1999–2014 database. The multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to examine 23,878 individuals 20 years and older. Daily caffeine intake was measured once at baseline. A total of 2206 deaths occurred, including 394 cardiovascular (CVD) deaths and 525 cancer deaths. Compared to those with a caffeine intake of <100 mg/day, the hazard ratios (HRs) for CVD mortality were significantly lower in the participants with a caffeine intake of 100–200 mg/day (HR, 0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.45–0.88), and those with a caffeine intake of >200 mg/day (HR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.50–0.88) after adjusting for potential confounders. The HRs for all-cause mortality were significantly lower in the participants with a caffeine intake of 100–200 mg/day (HR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.67–0.91), and those with a caffeine intake of >200 mg/day (HR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.60–0.78). Subgroup analyses showed that caffeine may have different effects on all-cause mortality among different age and body mass index (BMI) groups. In conclusion, higher caffeine intake was associated with lower all-cause and CVD mortality.