The current article is an integrative and analytical literature review on the concept and meaning of empathy in health and social care professionals. Empathy, i.e., the ability to understand the personal experience of the patient without bonding with them, constitutes an important communication skill for a health professional, one that includes three dimensions: the emotional, cognitive, and behavioral. It has been proven that health professionals with high levels of empathy operate more efficiently as to the fulfillment of their role in eliciting therapeutic change. The empathetic professional comprehends the needs of the health care users, as the latter feel safe to express the thoughts and problems that concern them. Although the importance of empathy is undeniable, a significantly high percentage of health professionals seem to find it difficult to adopt a model of empathetic communication in their everyday practice. Some of the factors that negatively influence the development of empathy are the high number of patients that professionals have to manage, the lack of adequate time, the focus on therapy within the existing academic culture, but also the lack of education in empathy. Developing empathetic skills should not only be the underlying objective in the teaching process of health and social care undergraduate students, but also the subject of the lifelong and continuous education of professionals.

Introduction: Living with a permanent colostomy brings severe changes in patients’ lives. The general health status as well as the personal, social and professional life of patients are significantly affected. Aim: The aim of the present study was to investigate the lived experience of patients undergoing permanent colostomy. Material and Methods: A qualitative research design based on interpretive phenomenology was carried out. Semi-structured interviews were conducted as the data collection method to obtain in-depth information regarding the research topic. The study sample consisted of eight (8) patients who had undergone a permanent colostomy. The data analysis was performed by the method of content analysis. Results: From the analysis of the data, three main themes emerged, namely: (A) Experiencing a traumatic event; (B) Living a new reality; (C) Efforts to improve quality of life. Five subthemes were formulated which were encompassed within the respective main themes accordingly. Conclusion: Patients with permanent colostomy face significant life changes that are experienced in a traumatic way. Issues such as autonomy, family and organizational support, self-management and empowerment can significantly improve the patients’ quality of life. Further research, regarding caregivers’ experience, improved community nursing care as well as nurses’ views on the needs of colostomy patients and their families, is suggested.

Quality is a multidimensional issue involving various features that depend on service performance and personal assessment. Clarifying the concept of quality is essential in order to further facilitate the understanding and improvement of quality in healthcare. The purpose of this study was to investigate how clinical nurses, providing care to adult medical patients, perceive and define the concept of quality nursing care. A descriptive qualitative research design was applied. A purposive sampling strategy was used to recruit nurses from the clinical sector of a general public hospital in Athens, Greece. Ten female nurses from the medical sector participated the study. Data collection was conducted through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Conventional content analysis was used to analyze the verbatim data. Four categories were revealed from the data analysis, namely: (a) “Quality care is holistic care”, (b) “Good care is an interpersonal issue”, (c) “Leadership is crucial”, and (d) “Best care is our responsibility”. Quality care was defined as holistic care, addressing all patient needs with competency and aiming for the best patient outcomes. It was associated with communication, teamwork, good leadership, and personal commitment. By developing an in-depth and mutual understanding about what quality means, nurse leaders and practitioners may collaborate in finding common paths to support quality interventions and enhance quality nursing care in clinical practice.

Introduction: Nursing activities score scales are valuable instruments for assessing the quality of nursing care provided in critically ill patients and easy to use in validating nurse staffing. The aim of this study was the assessment of nursing workload (NW) as a predictive factor of mortality by using the nursing activities score (NAS) scale. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study of 91 days during 2019, convenience sampling was employed to recruit 82 registered nurses (RN) from three intensive care units (ICUs) of two public hospitals with 41 beds in total. Data were collected using the NAS scale, the researcher’s observation, the information given by the staff, and the nursing care reports. Descriptive and inductive statistics were used with significance level α = 0.05. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS 25.0) was used for analyzing the data. Results: Females were the majority of the sample (84.1%), with a mean age of 38.9 (7.7) years, 87.8% had a nursing degree from a technological educational institute (T.E.I), the average working experience was 14 (8.1) years and the ICU experience was 12.9 (8.5) years. There were 3764 daily records of NAS with an average of 54.81 (2.34) and total NAS of 756.51 (150.27). The NW of the first day’s admission in the ICU was 65.15 (13.05), NW was 13.15 h/day and the NW of patients who died was 57.37 (4.06). The optimal nurse/patient ratio (NPR) was 1:1.82, while the existing NPR was 1:2.86. The mortality rate was 28.7%. Conclusion: Although the study results did not demonstrate a significant correlation between NW and mortality, the NW in ICU appeared to be relatively higher for patients who died than for those who survived. This result may serve as an indication for a positive correlation between these two variables. In addition, NW was found to be moderate, while one ICU nurse can take care of more than one patient.

Background and Objectives: The fatigue, stress, and burnout of nurses lead to them frequently making mistakes, which have a negative impact not only on the safety of the patients but also on their psychology. The ability to bounce back from mistakes is crucial for nurses. Nursing staff members’ physical and mental health, particularly their depression, is far from ideal, and this ill health is directly correlated with the frequency of self-reported medical errors. The nurses’ mental and physical health are also positively correlated with their perception of wellness support at work. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate the status of nurses’ mental and physical health regarding clinical errors and the impact of resilience on coping with these situations. Materials and Methods: A total of 364 healthcare professionals participated in this research; 87.5% of them were females and 12.5% of them were males. Most of the participants were 22–35 years old. The median number of years of employment was nine. Clinical nurses anonymously and voluntarily completed a special structured questionnaire that included questions from different validated tools in order to assess their state of physical and mental wellbeing after events of stress and errors made during their practice. Results: In total, 49.4% of the nurses had made an error on their own, and 73.2% had witnessed an error that someone else had made. At the time of the error, 29.9% of the participants were in charge of more than 20 patients, while 28.9% were responsible for a maximum of three patients. Participants who were 36–45 years old had more resilience (p = 0.049) and experienced fewer negative emotions than participants who were 22–35 years old. The participants who mentioned more positive feelings according to their mental state had greater resilience (p > 0.001). Conclusions: Errors were likely to happen during clinical practice due to nurses’ negative experiences. The level of resilience among the nursing population was found to play a very important role not only in making mistakes but also in coping with errors during their daily routine. Wellness and prevention must be given top priority in all healthcare systems across the country in order to promote nurses’ optimal health and wellbeing, raise the standard of care, and reduce the likelihood of expensive, avoidable medical errors. Healthcare administrations should promote prevention programs for stress occurrence in order to support nurses’ wellbeing maintenance.

The aim of this study was to explore the views of mental health professionals regarding the needs of the informal caregivers of patients with chronic psychotic syndrome. A qualitative research design was used. The sample consisted of 12 mental health professionals selected by a purposive sampling strategy. Data were collected through semistructured, face to face interviews. Framework analysis was used to analyze qualitative data and establish main themes and subthemes. Three main themes emerged namely, (i) impact of caring on caregivers’ lives, (ii) caregivers’ needs, and (iii) recommendations for better care. Informal caregivers’ needs were conceptualized into subthemes within the main themes. Caregivers’ increased responsibilities of caring for their relatives, the impact on their mental and physical health status and the restrictions in their social and professional life were revealed. Targeted health interventions and social policy planning are recommended for supporting informal caregivers and improving patient care.