Journal of advanced nursing
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Multicenter Study
Health-related quality of life after revascularization for peripheral arterial occlusive disease: long-term follow-up.
This paper reports a study to measure quality of life, before and after revascularization, in patients with intermittent claudication and critical limb ischaemia from a long-term perspective. ⋯ The degree to which quality of life was durable over time seems to depend on the severity of the disease and gender. Patients with critical limb ischaemia were older, had more other diseases and a lower quality of life than patients with intermittent claudication, which confirmed that patients with critical limb ischaemia need more ongoing nursing support to maintain independence in daily life a long time after revascularization.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Abdominal surgery, pain and anxiety: preoperative nursing intervention.
This paper reports a study examining the effects of preoperative nursing intervention for pain on abdominal surgery preoperative anxiety and attitude to pain, and postoperative pain. ⋯ Preoperative nursing intervention for pain has positive effects for patients undergoing abdominal surgery. The intervention used in this study could serve as a guide for nurses to improve the pain care of these patients.
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This paper uses the experiences of a programme designed to bring about change in performance of public health nurses (health visitors and school nurses) in an inner city primary care trust, to explore the issues of professional and organizational change in health care organizations. ⋯ Using a Complex Adaptive Systems approach was helpful for developing alternative views of change and for understanding why and how some aspects of change were more successful than others. Its use encouraged the confrontation of some long-standing assumptions about change and service delivery patterns in the National Health Service, and the process exposed challenging tensions within the Service. The consequent destabilising of organizational and professional norms resulted in considerable emotional impacts for practitioners, an area which was found to be underplayed within the Complex Adaptive Systems literature. A Complex Adaptive Systems approach can support change, in particular a recognition and understanding of the emergence of unexpected structures, patterns and processes. The approach can support nurses to change their behaviour and innovate, but requires high levels of accountability, individual and professional creativity.
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This paper reports a study describing Chinese nurses' use of non-pharmacological methods for relieving 6- to 12-year-old children's postoperative pain and factors related to this. ⋯ While Chinese nurses used versatile non-pharmacological methods in school-aged children's postoperative pain relief, there remains a need for more education about pain management and for more frequent use of these methods in clinical care.
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This paper reports an experimental study to determine whether giving 100% oxygen for 1 minute before and after closed suctioning is required. ⋯ In patients who did not receive 100% oxygen before and after closed suctioning, no significant falls in partial oxygen pressure and oxygen saturation were seen. A small number of patients were hypoxaemic before suctioning, and not [corrected] giving 100% oxygen might be deleterious for this category.