Purpose: To explore the lived experiences of nurses’ feelings, emotions, grief reactions, and coping mechanisms following their patients’ death. Background: On a daily basis, nurses are experiencing patients’ death, which exposes them to grief. Nurses’ grief has not been sufficiently addressed in practice settings, although it has been a well-known threat to health and work performance. Design: A qualitative design guided by a phenomenological approach was adopted. Method: Data were collected from a purposive sample of 21 Jordanian nurses by conducting three focus groups and analyzed using Colaizzi’s framework. Findings: Four themes were generated in which participants reported feelings of grief following their patients’ death. Their grief emotions were reported as sadness, crying, anger, shock, denial, faith, fear, guilt, fear of the family’s reaction, and powerlessness. Conclusions: The study provided evidence that nurses respond emotionally to patients’ death and experience grief. Nurses are burdened by recurrent patients’ deaths and try to cope and overcome their grief. This study emphasizes the importance of developing strategies to help nurses positively cope with their grief from a holistic perspective. This will reflect positively on the nurses’ performance.
22 July 2015 in European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing
Cardiac diseases have direct and indirect effects on sexuality. Health care providers, especially nurses, have a major responsibility in addressing and discussing sexual concerns and providing sexual counseling needs for patients with cardiac diseases. Discussing sexual issues in Arabic Muslim countries is considered a taboo. Lack of information about sexual life can affect the quality of life for patients with cardiac diseases. In this study, concerns regarding counseling needs and sexual information pertaining to Jordanian patients with cardiac diseases are addressed. Non-experimental, cross-sectional, descriptive designs were employed, accompanied by a self-report questionnaire, as well as a structured interview using the Steinke Sexual Concerns and Sexual Activity questionnaires for cardiac patients. A convenient sample of Jordanian male and female patients with cardiac problems was recruited. Results revealed that only 11% of the participants with cardiac diseases reported receiving information regarding sexual life following cardiac-related events. Most patients (71%, F=81) preferred cardiologists to provide them with sexual information, and almost two-thirds of them (62%, F=75) considered nurses’ gender to be a barrier, preventing them from inquiring about their sexual life. Patients with cardiac diseases had sexual concerns, but none of incredible importance. However, most patients (76%, F=94) reported changes in sexual activities following cardiac-related events. Cardiac patients had sexual concerns and sexual counseling needs that they would not discuss. Health care professionals should arrange sexual counseling plans with the patient; as every patient has individual, specific, and unique sexual counseling needs, dependent upon their lifestyle, health conditions, and their type of cardiac disease.
Background: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that needs long-term management. Mobile health is an emerging field that is being used for diabetes self-management. Aim: Evaluate the effect of a diabetes self-management mobile application on self-efficacy, self-care agency, and self-care management among 128 Jordanian patients with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus. Methods: The study utilized a non-equivalent controlled groups quasi-experimental design, with 64 patients in the control and in the intervention groups. Results: There was significant improvement in mean self-efficacy in the intervention group, improved self-care agency between the groups, and improved self-care management both within the intervention group and between the groups, after controlling for self-efficacy and self-care agency. Conclusion: Using a diabetes self-management mobile application may help improve patients’ confidence in managing diabetes, and better commitment to and performance of self-care activities.
Nursing students experienced various types of bullying and abuse in their practice areas. This study aims to assess the incidence, nature, and types of bullying and harassment experienced by Jordanian nursing students in clinical areas. A cross-sectional, descriptive design was used, utilizing a self-report questionnaire. A convenient sampling technique was used to approach nursing students who are in their 3rd or 4th year in governmental and private universities. Of 162 (70%) students who reported harassment, more than 80% of them were females and single. Almost 40% of them reported that males were the gender of the perpetrator. Almost 26.5% of them reported that patient’s relatives or friends were the sources of harassment. Psychological/verbal harassment was the most reported type of harassment (79%). Findings showed that there was a statistically significant difference in psychological/verbal harassment based on gender and type of the university. Also, there were significant negative correlations between psychological/verbal harassment, professional achievement, and personal life. Harassment in the clinical area is affecting the professional and personal lives of students, who lack the knowledge of policy to report this harassment. 1. Most of the students who reported harassment were females and single. 2. Psychological/verbal harassment was the most reported type of harassment. 3. Psychological/verbal harassment affected the students’ professional and personal achievements.
Background: Self-care management (SCM) is a cornerstone in the management of diabetes mellitus (DM), as it has a positive impact on glycemic control. Aims: To investigate the level, specific practices, correlates, and predictors of SCM practices among Jordanian adult patients with type 1 diabetes (DM1). Methodology: Using an online self-report questionnaire, a convenience sample of 127 DM type 1 patients were recruited who agreed to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire had four sections; demographics, the diabetes self-efficacy scale (DSES), the appraisal of self-care agency scale-revised (ASAR-R), and the Diabetes Self-Management Scale (DSMS). Results: The mean score of the total Diabetes Self-Management Scale (DSMS) of patients was 204.16 ( SD = 40.35, range = 97–299). We found that SCM practices differed between patients according to their characteristics; the SCM-Activity and SCM-Food differed according to gender, educational level, and income. Furthermore, there were significant negative relationships between the duration of being diagnosed with DM and SCM-activity, and between BMI and each of SCM-Blood glucose monitoring and SCM-adherence to the medication regimen. Lastly, sequential regression showed that income, self-efficacy (SE), and self-care agency (SCA) were significant predictors of SCM. Conclusions: Patients with DM type 1 exhibit different levels of SCM according to their personal and clinical characteristics. Tailored health education plans should be provided to patients according to their risk factors for low SCM practices.