Search

Introduction: The spread of microorganisms is caused by direct or indirect contact, respiratory droplets, and airborne transmission. Knowledge and compliance with standard precautions are crucial in preventing infection in the hospital. Objectives: To assess the level of knowledge and compliance with standard precautions among registered nurses who work in military hospitals and the factors affecting compliance with standard precautions. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted. Four hundred and eight registered nurses at three Jordanian Royal Medical Services hospitals completed an online self-report questionnaire using a convenience sampling technique. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 25 was used to analyze the data. Results: The level of knowledge of standard precautions among nurses was excellent, with an overall mean score of 15.59 ± 2.22 out of 20; around half (54%) of them had an excellent level. Nurses' compliance with standard precautions was intermediate, with an overall mean score of 59.65 ± 14.57 out of 80. Forty-seven percent of nurses had a high degree of compliance. Compliance with standard precautions was correlated positively with age, working experience in years, total knowledge score, training in standard precautions, and availability of personal protective equipment, and negatively with exposure to sharp injuries. Conclusion: Nurses play a key role in preventing and managing hospital infections through their responsibility for a large proportion of patient treatment and care. Therefore, efforts should be made to improve nurses' perceptions of the basic elements of standard precautions. Even so, results showed that compliance with standard precautions was intermediate. This highlights the need to take the necessary measures to raise the level of compliance. Even so, results showed that compliance with standard precautions was intermediate. This highlights the need to take the necessary measures to raise the level of compliance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To investigate the perception of undergraduate nursing students in different countries in the Middle East about caring. Design: A cross‐sectional, descriptive, comparative design. Methods: A total of 1,582 nursing students from six different countries in the Middle East completed the Caring Dimensions Inventory. Results: The total mean score of caring was 138.8 (± 15.8), indicating a high level of caring. The highest mean score was for nursing students from Egypt (M = 145.37 ± 15.97), whereas the lowest was for nursing students from Palestine (M = 135.36 ± 13.48). The caring perception was more significant for female students than male students, and no significant correlation was found between students' ages and caring scores. Conclusions: The high level of caring among nursing students reflects the involvement of caring behaviour in the nursing curricula, which motivates nursing schools to continue stressing the importance of caring and to enhance this behaviour among their graduates. Patient or Public Contribution: Improving the students' caring competencies as recommended by the study will influence the caregiving quality in the future that will be reflected in nurse–patient caring relationships and raise the patients' and public satisfaction with nursing care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Advanced technologies in intensive care units, including artificial intelligence and digitization, has implications for psycho-emotional aspects of caring in terms of communication, involvement, and holistic provision in a safe, effective, and efficient manner. Critical care nurses must maintain a balance between their technological and humanistic caring behaviours during the provision of individualized holistic patient care. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine level and predictors of caring behaviours among critical care nurses in two Arab countries. Methods: A cross-sectional design was used to achieve the objective of this study, whereby a quantitative online questionnaire survey was administered to 210 adult intensive care unit nurses at two government hospitals in Sharjah (United Arab Emirates), and two university hospitals in Amman (Jordan). Based on G* Power analysis, 200 participants were adequate to run the analysis. Results: On average, 49% of the whole sample had 'good' caring behaviours. Among nurses who were working in Emirati intensive care units, 48.5% had good caring behaviours, compared to 47.4% of Jordanian intensive care unit nurses. Additionally, the results showed that predictors of caring behaviours among nurses include female gender, holding a master's degree, interest in nursing profession, and a 1:1 nurse-to-patient ratio. Conclusions: About half of the ICU nurses in this study had low levels of caring behaviours. The present study highlights the requirement for integrating the concept of holistic and patient-centred care as the essence of the nursing profession in nursing curricula to improve the level of care provided by all nurses working in intensive care units. Continuing education programs and specific interventional programs should be directed toward predictors of caring behaviours among each specific group of nurses. Future research is needed using qualitative methods to understand what the perception of intensive care unit nurses is about caring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nurses make up the majority of the healthcare workforce. They contribute to the development of healthcare systems and the provision of high‐quality, effective, and patient‐centered healthcare services. However, nurses need good mental and emotional well‐being to provide adequate care and the necessary physical and mental health support for their clients. This study aimed to determine the level of generalized psychological distress among nurses in the United Arab Emirates. As this study was initiated before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic, we were able to compare data gathered before and during the pandemic. Method: This study used a cross‐sectional correlational design. The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) was used to measure generalized psychological distress. Nurses' distress levels were measured and compared before and during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Results: In total, 988 participants completed the questionnaire. The majority (n = 629, 63.7%) were employed in hospitals and the remainder worked in primary healthcare settings (n = 359, 36.3%). The mean distress score was 27.1 ± 13.7; 42.1% (n = 416) of participants had a severe level of distress, and only 36.4% (n = 360) reported no distress. More participants had severe stress levels before COVID‐19 (59.5%, n = 386) compared with during COVID‐19 (10.9%, n = 30). Conclusions: Participants' K10 scores suggest that nurses experience significant distress, which may compromise their ability to care for their clients. This study emphasizes the importance of supporting nurses as a preliminary step to improving patient care. Despite the pressure of working during the COVID‐19 pandemic, participants' general distress scores were lower during than before the pandemic. Organizational, governmental, and global support and appreciation may have contributed to relieving the distress nurses experienced. This may be a useful ongoing approach for enhancing healthcare systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is one of the most significant leading causes of death and disability in the world. The quality of life (QoL) score is used to evaluate the impact of ACS treatments on the patients' physical, emotional, and social functioning. It is considered a significant indicator of the progress of the patients' health status and is useful in predicting patients' needs for continuing, modifying, or changing their treatment plans. Objective: To identify the associations between patients' characteristics and the QoL among ACS patients in Jordan. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted using a convenience sample of 372 participants with ACS from six referral hospitals in Jordan. Results: Jordanian patients with higher educational level and exercise had significant and positive association with QoL (β = 0.257, p <.001), (β = 0.191, p <.001), respectively. Also, patients who reported having dyslipidaemia and having unstable angina (UA) had lower score of QoL (β = −0.165, p <.001), (β = −0.149, p <.001), respectively. Finally, gender and working status did not significantly appear to have an association with the total QoL. Conclusions: This study sheds light on the importance of increasing the level of patients' awareness about their illness by educating them about it and encouraging them to engage in physical activity programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: This study aimed to clarify if sense of coherence (SOC) could be used as an element of primary‐focused health services in schools. Background: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is striving to develop a high‐quality, primary‐focused health care system. School health care services are well established in the UAE but have not yet been fully used to play a key role in this development. Methods: This is a cross‐sectional survey study to explore adolescents' SOC and their behavioural, psychosocial and clinical outcomes. Results: A total of 408 adolescents participated in this study. Compared with others, adolescents with higher SOC had better adherence to treatment, fewer visits to the school nurse, better self‐efficacy, fewer hyperactivity problems, fewer emotional problems, more prosocial behaviours and fewer conduct problems. Conclusion: Implementing interventions that improve SOC may support improved well‐being among adolescents. The findings also support the use of SOC and salutogenesis as a framework to reinforce primary health care services for this population. Implications for Nursing Management: Health service managers can utilize SOC as a framework to focus service on illness prevention and health promotion, they should collaborate with education authorities to include more health‐related topics as part of school curricula to promote students' SOC and, finally, they should assess and build awareness of SOC and associated tools among school nurses and primary health care providers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depression, anxiety, and stress (DAS) are common symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients and are highly correlated with poor quality of life. Managing DAS among such patients can improve their quality of life (QoL), empowering them with improved autonomy, self-care, independency, and ability to perform daily activities. This study is aimed at examining the effectiveness of the Benson Relaxation Technique (BRT) on reducing DAS among patients diagnosed with MS in Jordan. This quasiexperimental study of 105 Jordanian patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis tested an intervention group (60 patients) who received BRT and a control group (45 patients) who received normal treatment. Data were collected from January 2021 to April 2021, using the Arabic version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS21). The intervention group was instructed to perform the BRT two times a day for 10 minutes at home for eight weeks at two specific times, with 7-8-hour intervals between each episode. STROBE guidelines were followed in reporting the review. At the baseline comparison, there was no statistical difference between the interventional and control groups with regard to DAS. The levels of DAS between the two groups after three months of the last sessions of the intervention (postintervention) were compared. The results showed that the intervention group had significantly lower levels of DAS compared to the control group. The levels of the DAS were significantly lower for the intervention group postintervention. Adding relaxation techniques to the therapeutic routine is a cost-effective complementary treatment to decrease DAS among MS patients and improve their QoL. Relevance to Practice. This study provides a baseline of data that could facilitate further investigations in the future to improve the quality of services delivered to such patients and thus their QoL and satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older adults are at a higher risk of being diagnosed with long-term conditions than those in other age groups. The aim of this study was to examine long-term conditions associated with, and predictive of, primary health care (PHC) service use among older adults living in the Irbid Governorate of Jordan over the previous one, six and 12 months. Cross-sectional data were collected from 190 adults aged 60 years and above. Face-to-face interviews were conducted within the catchment areas associated with three comprehensive healthcare centres. Results show that rates of PHC service use among older adults with long-term conditions are high, with heart conditions, diabetes and hypertension the most consistent predictors of service use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]