International journal of nursing studies
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Systematic literature reviews identify, select, appraise, and synthesize relevant literature on a particular topic. Typically, these reviews examine primary studies based on similar methods, e.g., experimental trials. In contrast, interest in a new form of review, known as mixed studies review (MSR), which includes qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies, is growing. In MSRs, reviewers appraise studies that use different methods allowing them to obtain in-depth answers to complex research questions. However, appraising the quality of studies with different methods remains challenging. To facilitate systematic MSRs, a pilot Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT) has been developed at McGill University (a checklist and a tutorial), which can be used to concurrently appraise the methodological quality of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods studies. ⋯ The MMAT is unique, thus the reliability of the pilot MMAT is promising, and encourages further development.
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The Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) is one of the few behavioural pain scales which have been developed and validated for the purpose of detecting pain in nonverbal critically ill adults. ⋯ The CPOT was successfully implemented and seemed to have positive effects on pain assessment and management nursing practices in the ICU. Further research is warranted to look at its impact on patient outcomes.
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Oncology nurses should possess a high level of sensitivity while dealing with patients' sexual health needs. However, sexual health care is still inadequately addressed because of barriers such as conservative beliefs and incorrect assumptions regarding sexual issues. Most scales for measuring attitude toward sexual health care were insufficient to establish the instrument's validity and did not focus on oncology nurses. ⋯ The scale of attitude toward sexual health care showed validity and reliability in evaluating the attitude of oncology nurses toward sexual health care and can be used to identify attitudinal barriers in nurses as well as to develop and test educational interventions for the improvement of sexual health care.
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According to the latest pressure ulcer definition provided by the EPUAP and NPUAP pressure and shear are named as factors causing pressure ulcers. Empirical evidence suggests that pressure forces in combination with shear seem to be primarily responsible for deeper tissue injuries leading to category III or IV pressure ulcers. Superficial frictional forces seem to cause skin lesion resembling category II pressure ulcers. ⋯ Based on a large sample of patients from multiple centres throughout Germany results indicate, that there is a strong relationship between friction forces and superficial skin lesions and between pressure forces and deeper categories III and IV PUs. This indicates that there might be different aetiologies causing different wounds. Given, that both superficial and deep ulcers have different aetiologies the validity of the current PU definition and classification is questionable, because ulcers due to maceration and excoriation are excluded from this classification system.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study
Comparison of post-dural puncture headache and low back pain between 23 and 25 gauge Quincke spinal needles in patients over 60 years: randomized, double-blind controlled trial.
Even though the use of a 25 gauge or smaller Quincke needle is recommended for spinal anesthesia to reduce post-dural puncture headache in Korea, lumbar puncture in older patients using a 25 gauge or smaller Quincke needle can be difficult. However, most previous studies concerning post-dural puncture headache have chosen children, parturients, and young adults as study participants. ⋯ The choice of a 23 or 25 gauge Quincke needle for spinal anesthesia has no significant influence on post-dural puncture headache and post-operative back pain for Korean patients greater than 60-years-of-age. The 23 gauge Quincke needle is an option for lumbar punctures in this patient population.