Background: Nurses and nursing students experienced an emotional burden while working during the COVID-19 outbreak. During the COVID-19 outbreak three questions for nurses working under these extreme circumstances were formulated: 1. What today’s events do you remember? 2. How do you feel (physically and mentally)? 3. Do you have enough support? The purpose of this study was to obtain insight into whether nurses and nursing students perceive that the use of the three-questions-method contributes to effective coping with the emotional burden during the COVID-19 outbreak. Methods: Focus group interviews were held with hospital nurses (n = 11) and nursing students with internships in mental health care (n = 2), hospital (n = 9), and homecare/nursing home care (n = 3) in September 2020 followed by twenty semi-structured interviews one year later. Results: Almost all nurses and nursing students named factors that contributed to the emotional burden: fear, powerlessness, frustration, lack of knowledge about COVID-19, and pressure to pass the internship. Participants indicated that using the three-questions-method can help to effectively cope with the emotional burden during and after the COVID-19 outbreak. Conclusions: Using the three-questions-method offers added value in coping with emotional burden and can be used in education as well as in practice.
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Background: Delirium is a high prevalent postoperative complication in older cardiac surgery patients and can have drastic consequence for the patient. Preventive interventions, diagnosis and treatment of delirium require specialized knowledge and skills. Objective: To gain insight in the current opinion and beliefs of nurses in hospitals concerning prevention, diagnosis and treatment of delirium in older hospital patients in general and specifically in older cardiac surgery patients. Methods: In a cross-sectional study from February to July 2010, we distributed a survey on beliefs on delirium care among 368 nurses in three hospitals in the Netherlands, in one hospital in all wards with older patients and in two hospitals in the cardiac surgery wards only. Results: Although in literature incidence rates up to 54.9% in cardiac surgery patients in hospitals are reported, with a response rate of 68% (250), half of the nurses believe that the incidence of delirium is not even 10%. Two thirds think that delirium in patients is preventable. Although, the Delirium Observation Scale is most often used for screening delirium, nearly all nurses do not routinely screen patients for delirium. Opinions on delirium of nurses working in cardiac surgery wards did not differ from nurses caring for older patients in other hospital wards. Conclusions: Nurses do have knowledge on delirium care, but there is a gap between the reported incidence in literature and the estimation of the occurrence of delirium by nurses. A two-way causal relationship emerges: because nurses underestimate the occurrence, they do not screen patients on a routine basis. And because they do not screen patients on a routine basis they underestimate the incidence.
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OBJECTIVE: To determine the value of training for the Emergency Management of Severe Burns (EMSB) for medical and nursing staff working in emergency care as measured by their performance in a simulated burn incident online program.METHODS: An Internet-based questionnaire, which included a simulated burn incident, was developed. All of the medical and nursing staff in hospital emergency departments and ambulance services in the Netherlands were invited to complete this questionnaire. The effect of EMSB training on the individual's knowledge of and performance in the emergency management of a burn victim was evaluated because some of the respondents had participated in EMSB training, whereas others had not.RESULTS: Of the 280 responses received, 198 questionnaires were included in the analysis. The analyzed questionnaires were submitted by nurses (43%), ambulance workers (33%), and physicians (23%). Only 14% of the people in the study had participated in EMSB training, whereas 78% had received other or additional life support training and 22% of respondents had no additional life support training. Medical and nursing staff who had participated in EMSB training performed better in the following subjects: mentioning hypothermia as a focus of attention (70% versus 53%, p=0.085), correct use of hand size (70% versus 36%, p=0.001) and use of the correct hand percentage in the estimation of total body surface area (TBSA, 82% versus 57%, p=0.015), suspicion of no airway obstruction in an outdoor trauma (93% versus 63%, p = 0.002) and referral of functional area burns to a burn center (22% versus 8%, p = 0.04). However, both groups overestimated the TBSA (34% of the total group overestimated ≥ 20%) and did not know the correct formula for fluid resuscitation (87% of the total group).CONCLUSION: There is some evidence that medical staff members who have participated in EMSB training have a better knowledge of emergency management and are more effective in the management of a simulated burn case. However, both individuals who had participated in EMSB as well as those who had not participated in EMSB needed additional training in EMSB.
Personal factors, team factors, and organizational factors have a strong influence on the adoption of technology used by, for instance, nurses in homecare. This part of the research portfolio in Point of Care Diagnostics regards the adoption of diagnostic technology in the health care domain.
