BACKGROUND: On a global scale, with the increase of aging, the number of people in need of palliative care has increased significantly, which has a huge impact on the professional pressure of palliative nurses. Existing literature focuses on examining palliative care from the perspective of patients, but palliative nurses also face the threats to physical and mental health caused by job burnout.
EVALUATION: A systematic literature search has been carried out in the following databases as of October 2021:PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Scopus. The Cochrane Library and Joanna Briggs Institute Library were also searched to confirm if there are any available systematic reviews on the subject. Manually searched the reference list of included papers.
KEY ISSUES: Seventeen studies were included in this review. Five key issues in the palliative care nurse's experience: (1) psychological harm, (2) physical symptoms, (3) negative emotions, (4) Burnout caused by communication barriers, and (5) Lack of experience. Two key issues in the needs of palliative care nurses: (1) social support, and (2) training and education.
CONCLUSION: The pressure of facing death for a long time and controlling the symptoms of patients has a very important impact on the mental and physical health of palliative nurses. Nursing staff have needed to be satisfied, and it is essential to provide support and help relieve the pressure on palliative nurses.
METHODS: NPC patients were recruited in this cross-sectional study, and they were divided into well-nourished and malnourished groups according to the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM). Potential risk factors were initially screened using univariate analysis (p
METHODS AND ANALYSIS: NPC patients will be required to complete a risk factor questionnaire after obtaining their informed consent. The risk factor questionnaire will be used to collect potential risk factors for malnutrition. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses will be used to identify risk factors for malnutrition. A new nutritional assessment tool will be developed based on risk factors. The new tool's performance will be assessed by calibration and discrimination. The bootstrapping will be used for internal validation of the new tool. In addition, external validation will be performed by recruiting NPC patients from another hospital.
DISCUSSION: If the new tool is validated to be effective, it will potentially save medical staff time in assessing malnutrition and improve their work efficiency. Additionally, it may reduce the incidence of malnutrition and its adverse consequences.
STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY: The study will comprehensively analyze demographic data, disease status, physical examination, and blood sampling to identify risk factors for malnutrition. Furthermore, the new tool will be systematically evaluated, and validated to determine their effectiveness. However, the restricted geographical range may limit the generalizability of the results to other ethnicities. Additionally, the study does not analyze subjective indicators such as psychology.
ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: The ethical approval was granted by the Ethical Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University (NO. 2022-KT-GUI WEI-005) and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University (NO. 2022-KY-0752).
CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ChiCTR2300071550.
OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to report a comprehensive systematic review investigating the carryover effects of mental fatigue on skilled performance among athletes.
METHODS: A thorough search was conducted on PubMed, Web of Science, EBSCOhost (CENTRAL, SPORTDicus), and Scopus to select relevant literature, as well as on Google Scholar and sources of reference for grey literature. The selected literatures are centred on a mental fatigue protocol in which cognitive tasks are performed prior to athletic tasks. Only studies that used an experimental design to test two conditions, namely mental fatigue and non-mental fatigue, were selected.
RESULTS: Eleven articles were chosen based on the selection criteria. Mental fatigue affects skilled performance in three sports: soccer, basketball, and table tennis. A decline in skilled performance (decreased accuracy, increased performing time etc) is relevant to impaired executive functions. Seven studies focus on offensive skills, whereas only two studies are associated with defensive skills.
CONCLUSION: Mental fatigue has a negative effect on various sports skills of high-level athletes, including their technical and decision-making skills; however, the impact is greater on offensive skills than that of defensive skills in terms of the role of athletes. Impaired executive functions may be responsible for the negative effects of mental fatigue on skilled performance.
PURPOSE: This study explores the menstrual experiences of people with DSD and sex reassignment in Nigeria.
METHODS: A qualitative approach with a phenomenological study design was employed in this study to explore and describe the experiences of people with DSD at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital in Sokoto, Nigeria. The data were collected using face-to-face interviews, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using NVivo software.
RESULTS: The findings show that the participants experienced menstrual problems: men with menstruation and women with amenorrhea. The female participants generally described amenorrhea as a disappointment and linked menstruation with womanhood. Amenorrhea evinced both emotional and psychological effects. However, some of the female participants considered amenorrhea in a positive light and were happy with their lives without menstruation. The menstrual experiences of male participants included menarche, lower abdominal pain, regular monthly bleeding, and ovulation. The male participants described menstruation as a disaster in their lives and a source of anxiety, suicidal ideation, and depression. Menstruation negatively affected their psychosocial well-being.
CONCLUSIONS: The menstrual experience of individuals with DSD negatively affects their quality of life. The women with DSD in this study showed a generally poor knowledge of menarche, menstruation, and puberty, indicating that their parents had ignored the initial symptoms of DSD. DSD were only recognized at puberty because of the development of ambiguous physical traits and of the onset of menstruation in men and the confirmation of amenorrhea in women.
BACKGROUND: The quality of life of people with disorders of sex development depends largely on the availability of good psychosocial and psychosexual management. There is a lack of qualitative systematic reviews of the literature on the experiences of people with disorders of sex development.
DESIGN: The seven steps of qualitative meta-ethnography were employed in this review.
DATA SOURCES: The following electronic databases were systematically searched until January 2017: Science Direct, Scopus, Sage online, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Medline, Wiley Online Library, and Google Scholar. Search terms for this review were "disorders of sex development," "intersex," "ambiguous genitalia," "experiences," "qualitative study," and "method".
REVIEW METHOD: A 13-item scale was applied to evaluate the quality of the selected studies and synthesized using the principles of meta-ethnography.
FINDINGS: Twelve studies met the eligibility criteria. Six major themes described the experiences of people with disorders of sex development. These included a range of physical, psychological, social, and sexual experiences which affect their quality of life. Different coping strategies were employed by individuals who live with the lifelong condition.
CONCLUSION: Disorders of sex development affect the quality of life of people living with these disorders. Nurses are tasked with providing holistic care for people with disorders of sex development in order to improve their quality of lives. As such, there is a need to explore the experiences of nurses in the management of disorders of sex development.
AIM: To determine the range of physical assessment skills practised by critical care nurses and their adoption factors.
STUDY DESIGN: This study uses a cross-sectional survey design. A self-administered questionnaire evaluating 40 physical assessment skills was conducted with 133 staff nurses (response rate: 96.4%) in three critical care units at a Malaysian government hospital between November 2019 and January 2020.
RESULTS: Most nurses applied 32 (80%) skills during every working shift, involving the vital signs and all body systems except the gastrointestinal system. Five skills (12.5%) were occasionally applied, while three skills (7.5%) were rarely applied or not part of most nurses' clinical practice. About 20% of the nurses did not routinely check the respiration rate. Medical and surgical intensive care unit nurses (U = 1129, p
BACKGROUND: Mothers of premature infants may face stress having premature infants, and their infants may be admitted to the NICU for a few weeks or months. The mothers' experience of stress would be worse if they have low knowledge and poor NICU-related maternal ability. Mothers of infants admitted to the NICU require well-planned interventions to cope with psychological matters arising after an infant hospitalisation.
DESIGN: Quasi-experimental design.
METHODS: A total of 216 mothers were consecutively assigned to control and intervention groups. Each group consisted of 108 mothers. The mothers in both groups received questionnaire concerning maternal stress and NICU-related ability during their first visit to NICU (within 48 hr of admission). A structured nursing intervention was implemented for 10 days on mothers in the intervention group. The control group continued to receive existing practice nursing care. Mothers of both groups were again given the questionnaire on maternal stress and NICU-related ability after 14 days of admission.
RESULTS: In the intervention group, the difference between the mean total score of maternal stress and parental role and relationship subscale decreased significantly, compared to the control group (p = 0.04; p = 0.01) respectively. Maternal ability improved significantly in mothers in the intervention group 2 weeks postintervention, p
BACKGROUND: Vulnerable premature infants commonly require special care in the NICUs. In most cases, prolonged hospitalization results in stress and anxiety for the mothers.
METHODS: A non-probability convenience survey was used in a public hospital, with 180 mothers completing the 26-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and a 40-item State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI).
RESULTS: 56.5% of mothers had high levels of stress, 85.5% of mothers had a high level of state-anxiety and 67.8% of mothers had a high level of trait-anxiety. The stress experienced by these mothers had a significant relationship with anxiety, and was found to be associated with state and trait anxiety levels, but not with maternal and infant characteristics.
CONCLUSION: Mothers in this setting revealed high levels of stress and anxiety during their premature infants' NICU admission. An immediate interventional programme focusing on relieving mothers' anxiety and stress is needed to prevent maternal stress and anxiety at an early stage.
OBJECTIVE: To examine factors related to the QoL of mothers having preterm newborns hospitalized in the neonatal critical unit.
METHODS: A non-probability convenience survey was used in a public hospital in Malaysia, covering 180 mothers whose preterm newborns were hospitalized into level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) through the completion of a 26-questions survey of the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF) and the 26-questions of Parental Stress Scale: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (PSS: NICU). The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, bivariate analysis, and Pearson correlation coefficients.
RESULT: The mean scores for mothers' quality of life were (M = 3.67, SD = 0.73) and maternal stress (M = 3.03, SD = 0.90) out of 5. A mother's occupation was found to be the only factor associated with the quality of life among mothers who have preterm newborns admitted to the NICU. Furthermore, maternal role change was found to have a moderate negative relationship with the quality of life (r = 0.310, p = 0.05).
CONCLUSION: The findings of this study revealed that the main factors contributing to the mother's QoL during their preterm newborns' NICU admission were role change-related stress. Thus, to maintain a better QoL among this group of mothers during this traumatic period, a special nursing intervention program must be implemented immediately, right after the preterm newborns' admission, to relieve the mothers' stress which has been proven to have a direct effect on the mothers' QoL. The study results will alert healthcare providers, particularly neonatal nurses, on the need to support mothers psychologically in terms of role change. This is to ensure a better quality of life among mothers whose newborns were admitted to the NICU.