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Background: While nursing workload is a worldwide challenge, less attention has been given to the determining factors. Understanding these factors is important and could help nursing managers to provide suitable working environment and to manage the adverse outcomes of nursing workload. The aim of this study was to discover nurses' experiences of determinant factors of their workload. Materials and Methods: In this qualitative study, the participants included 15 nurses working in two hospitals in Tehran, Iran. The data were collected through 26 unstructured interviews and were analyzed using conventional content analysis. The rigor has been guaranteed with prolonged engagement, maximum variance sampling, member check, and audit trail. Results: Resource–task imbalance was the main theme of nurses' experiences. It means that there was an imbalance between necessary elements to meet patients' needs in comparison with expectation and responsibility. Resource–task imbalance included lack of resource, assignment without preparation, assigning non‑care tasks, and patients' and families' needs/expectations. Conclusions: A deep and comprehensive imbalance between recourses and tasks and expectations has been perceived by the participants to be the main source of work overload. Paying more attention to resource allocation, education of quality workforce, and job description by managers is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Many women, throughout their life cycle, experience unintended pregnancy and its subsequent induced abortion. Nonetheless, women's perceptions of this phenomenon - particularly in countries prohibiting elective abortion - are poorly known. The aim of this study was to explore Iranian Azeri women's perceptions of unintended pregnancy. Materials and Methods: This was a conventional content analysis study conducted in Tabriz, Iran. The data were collected through 31 semi-structured interviews with 23 women who had recently experienced an unintended pregnancy. The study participants were recruited using the purposive sampling method. Sampling started in March 2013 and continued until reaching data saturation, i.e. till August 2013. Data analysis was carried out concurrently with data collection. MAXQDA 10.0 software was employed for managing the study data. Results: The study data analysis process yielded the formation of three main themes including negative effects of unintended pregnancy on daily life, fear of being stigmatized with violating social norms, and abortion panic, which in turn constituted the broader overarching theme of "threat supposition." In other words, following an unintended pregnancy, the study participants had experienced different levels of fear and threat depending on their personal, family, and socio-cultural backgrounds. Conclusions: Women perceive unintended pregnancy as a challenging and threatening situation. An unintended pregnancy can threaten women's lives through social deprivations, growing instability, and putting both mother and baby at risk for physical and psychosocial problems. On the other hand, an unsafe illegal abortion could have potentially life-threatening complications. To cope with such a situation, women need strong social support. Healthcare providers can fulfi ll such women's need for support by developing pre-abortion counseling services and providing them with professional counseling. Also, strengthening women's support system by policy-makers is recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Family, especially mother, is faced with numerous challenges by experiencing a premature birth. Since knowing about mother's efforts regarding prematurely born infant helps us in our comprehensive understanding of the impact of this incident on the family system and its performance. The present study was carried out to explore the mothers' strategies regarding prematurely born infant. Methods: In a conventional qualitative content analysis, data was collected through purposive sampling by semi-structured deep interviews with 18 mothers who had prematurely born infant during 2012-2013 in the teaching hospitals of the north and northwest of Iran. All the interviews were recorded, typed, and finally analyzed. Results: Data analysis resulted in the extraction of categories of "asking for help, elevating capacity and reducing personal responsibilities and commitments". These categories were revealed in mothers respectively by the different sub-categories of "religious appeal and relying on beliefs, seeking information from the treatment and caring team, participating in infant's care, companionship and support of family and friends", "focusing on positive thinking and imagination, patience and strength " and "ignoring some routine affairs and reducing role-related activities and duties". Conclusion: Considering the uniqueness of the mother's role in responding to the needs of infants, healthcare system should consider mothers as real target in the intervention strategies in order to promote health and quality of life, so maybe this way, the burden of care and management of critical situations caused by a premature birth on the mother can be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In recent years, there has been a rise in the number of premature births. Mothers of these newborns experience a high degree of stress over time. Since a more comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon can help the healthcare teams in detecting the deficiencies and needs of such newborns' mothers for a better and more effective intervention, the present study was carried out to describe the mothers' experiences in the area of premature birth. Materials and Methods: The present study is a qualitative study with a content analysis approach. The data collection process included 15 semi-structured and in-depth interviews with the mothers delivering premature babies during 2012-2013 in the medical educational centers of north and northwest of Iran. A purposive sampling method was used. All the interviews were recorded, typed, and finally analyzed using a qualitative content analysis with a conventional method. Results: Data analysis led to the extraction of continuous and multiple waves of emotional responses in mothers with premature birth. This has been revealed in mothers by the different categories of affective reactions, symptoms of anxiety, and mood disturbances including decline in performance, individual shortcomings, and mental irritation. Conclusions: Mothers' unpreparedness and unexpected childbirth make them encounter the multiple and continuous waves of emotional responses, which will consequently lead to decline in performance, individual shortcomings, and mental irritation among them. Therefore, in order to prevent the negative and long-term consequences of such reactions, it is recommended that more attention should be given to support these mothers as the main caregivers of such infants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching ethics to nurses leads to their involvement in providing high quality care, enable them to duly encounter ethical issues. One of the key elements of educational systems is nursing instructors. Even though lots of studies show the role of instructors in students' learning, their role in promotion of professional ethics has been attended to less. The objective of this study is surveying the experience of nursing students with respect to the role of instructors in promotion of professional ethics. This qualitative study enrolled 15 undergraduate nursing students from three nursing schools in Teheran whom depth interview was performed. The interview was semistructured with open ended questions. The analysis was accomplished by use of qualitative content-analysis method. Data analysis demonstrated 2 main themes and 7 subcategories in regard to the role of instructors in promotion of professional ethics in nursing students including: 1) the effective professional role model 2) facilitating creative learning. The effective professional role model encompasses individual characteristics and beliefs, clinical skills and professional commitment of role model. Creative learning facilitates by encouraging critical thinking and decision-making, Providing supportive learning conditions, providing proper space for sharing knowledge followed by evaluation and creative feedback. The findings of this study provides a background for strengthening the role of instructors in promotion of professional ethics with more emphasis on research which increase capability of instructors at nursing education centers [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: Services of triangle centers in terms of training are counseling, prevention, and treatment in the three areas of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV / AIDS and drugs abuse. Healthcare providers of these centers have little respect for women's reproductive health needs (including safe motherhood). The health care centers do not provide enough sexual services including sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS and drug abuse to patients. The aim of this study was to determine and compare the most common SRH needs of individuals of this two types of centers. Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, for determining the sexual and reproductive health needs of the women in two groups, a standardized questionnaire of SRH needs assessment was used. The frequency of sexual and reproductive health needs of 600 women referred to health centers (group I: 514 women) and triangular center (Group II: 86 women) were evaluated Results: The most common SRH needs of women was cesarean section (need to safe delivery) in both two types of centers in the domain of safe motherhood, the use of traditional methods of contraception (need to spacing in childbearing) in the domain of family planning in the clients of the both two types of centers, being multi-partner of participants' husband (need to general and sexual health) in health care centers and being multi-partner of participants in triangle center in the domain of sexual history and practices (that the prevalence in two types of centers was very low, turbid and cheese form vaginal discharge (need to general and sexual health) in both types of centers in the domain of sexually transmitted infection, poor knowledge about routes of HIV transmission (need to knowledge about HIV/AIDS) in the domain of HIV/AIDS, and husband's sexual coercion (need to general, mental and sexual health) in the domain of violence. Among these needs, cesarean section (domain of safe motherhood) was more common than the others. Conclusion: Considering that the most common SRH needs was related to safe motherhood domain (high rate of cesarean section), so, in order to save sources and solve some problems including stigma, it is recommended that these two types of centers be integrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]