Occupational health among Iranian nursing personnel

Background: There is increasing global evidence that today’s work environment results in a higher risk of adverse health among nursing staff than among many other professions. Since nurses constitute the largest group in the healthcare workforce and have a crucial role in providing care services, their impaired health might have an adverse effect on the quality of healthcare. The overall aim of this thesis was to explore work-related health and associated factors. A further aim was to describe the experience of managing work and family roles among Iranian nursing personnel. Methods: The first of the four studies in this thesis used a qualitative method and the other three used a quantitative method. Study I focused on the process of managing work and family roles in the everyday life of Iranian female nurses. In Study II a questionnaire was culturally adapted and psychometrically evaluated in Persian, based on well-established instruments to measure work-related health, working conditions and family situation in the healthcare sector. This newly adapted questionnaire was then used in a cross-sectional study (Studies III-IV) among 520 nursing personnel from ten university hospitals to measure self- reported general and mental health and musculoskeletal disorders, and investigates how this was associated with organizational, physical and psychosocial working conditions and family situation. Findings: The findings of Study I showed that nurses were striving for balance between work and family roles. In Study II the conceptual structure of the adapted questionnaire in Persian was found to be acceptable for measuring work-related health and associated factors. The results of Studies III-IV indicated an inadequate and low quality of manual patient transferring devices, as well as perceived over-exertion. The participants reported low influence at work, poor leadership and job dissatisfaction, along with inflexible work schedules. These physical, psychosocial and organizational work factors were associated with general and mental health, and with musculoskeletal disorders. However, nursing personnel perceived patient care as meaningful, and no associations between family demands and mental health were reported. Conclusion: Iranian nurses’ attempts to balance their demanding work role and high traditional family expectations, could lead to threatened health and life dissatisfaction. Although adverse general and mental health and musculoskeletal disorders were associated with most of the working conditions; patient care was found to be meaningful, and family values were perceived as an important source of support and inspiration. Interventions such as flexible work schedules, and improvements in the physical and psychosocial work situation, along with the provision of child care and elderly care during shift work, would help nurses to play their work and family roles, which could lead to increased work efficacy and quality of healthcare

Synthesis of PANi nanoarrays anchored on 2D BiOCl nanoplates for photodegradation of Congo Red in visible light region

Photocatalytic processes have attained considerable attention of late years, especially for environmental remediation. Despite extensive research in this area, the need for safer, more efficient, and cost-effective processes has encouraged researchers to develop novel photocatalysis. However, the low active surface area and narrow bandgap limit their photocatalytic performances. In the present research, the 2D BiOCl sheets were successfully synthesized by a new hydrothermal method and decorated by PANi nanoarrays through in-situ oxidative polymerization of aniline. The UV�vis diffuse-re�ectance and photoluminescence spectroscopy revealed the synergistic effects between PANi nanoarrays and 2D BiOCl by enhancing the absorption in the visible light region and reduction of bandgap down to 2.9 eV. Furthermore, the morphology analysis showed the proper decoration of PANi nanoarrays on 2D BiOCl nanoplates. The synthesized nanocomposite with different weight loadings of PANi was taken to evaluate the decolorization efficiency of it. The result exhibited an optimum value of 88.35 at 60 min irradiation under visible light in the photodegradation of Congo Red (CR). Moreover, the probable photocatalytic mechanism for degradation of CR by PANi/BiCOl photocatalyst was proposed based on the scavenger experiments. The outcomes indicated that the PANi promoted the absorption intensity of the pure BiOCl in the visible region. To that, the well-arranged array and considerably high specific surface area of PANi could encourage the transfer of electrons witch generated by the photo to 2D BiOCl substrate and repel the recombination of electron-hole pairs. © 2019 The Korean Society of Industrial and Engineering Chemistr

Effect of Workplace Violence Management Program on the Incidence

Introduction:Emergency nurses are at higher risk for workplace violence than other health care workers, so a workplace violence management program is crucial to prevent violence. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to explore the effect of a workplace violence management program on the incidence of workplace violence against nurses in hospital emergency departments.Method:This study applied a quasi-experimental design using control groups and pre- and post-tests. The research units included 48 nurses working in the emergency departments of Farabi Hospital and Amir Alam Hospital in Tehran. The intervention included the use of a program featuring some management issues such as applying ventilation, using closed-circuit television cameras, modifying lightings, employing a security guard for the evening shift, and training. The training, which was entitled “Management and Prevention of Workplace Violence,” was implemented as a 2-day workshop using training programs. The data collection tool was the Workplace Violence in the Health Sector Questionnaire. Chi-square test and t-test were used to test the hypotheses. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 23.Results:The results of the study showed that the frequency of different forms of violence such as physical, psychological, sexual, and racial ones was decreased after the intervention, but this decrease was not statistically significant.Conclusion:The findings of the present study revealed that although the management program of preventing workplace violence with sub-categories such as training, security, physical environment, and policies and procedures could reduce the incidence of violence, this decrease was not significant; the lack of significance of the decrease was probably due to the low sample size and the short follow-up period (i.e., one month). Therefore, it is recommended that this study be carried out on a larger population with a longer follow-up period

Prevalence of Helicobacter Pylori in Iranian milk and dairy products using culture and ureC based-PCR techniques

The hygienic quality of milk has an important public health importance. Helicobacter pylori has a foodborne route and especially food with animal origin. This present study was carried out in order to isolation the H. pylori from cow milk samples using culture and PCR method. A total of 120 bovine milk and 120 dairy product samples were collected from the supermarkets of various parts of Iran. The animals whose milk samples collected for this study were clinically healthy. All samples were cultured and those that were H. pylori-positive were subjected for PCR method fordetection of the H. pyloriure C gene. Of 240 samples studied, 33 (13.75) were positive for the H. pylori using the culture method. Raw bovine milk were the most contaminated (16.66) but traditional cream were the less contaminated (7.5) samples. Significant differences was seen for the prevalence of H. pylori between raw bovine milk and traditional cream samples (P =0.027). All of the positive colonies of H. pylori were confirmed using the ureC gene based-PCR method. This study showed that cow milk and traditional dairy product samples are the sources of H. pylori infection for humans

Sense of coherence and coping strategies: How they influence quality of life in Iranian women with breast cancer

Aim: To investigate the mediation/moderation effect between Coping Behaviors (CBs) and Sense of Coherence (SOC) in the prediction of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in breast cancer patients. Design: Cross-sectional. Methods: A total of 221 patients were included in this study. The 13-item Orientation to Life Questionnaire, Brief COPE and Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy�Breast were investigated. Pearson's correlation coefficient and mediation/moderation analysis were performed. Results: Significant correlations were observed for SOC, active coping, acceptance, positive reframing (PR), planning, use of emotional support (UES), use of instrumental support, behaviour disengagement and self-blame with HRQoL. Except for planning and acceptance, SOC partially mediated the CBs' effect on HRQoL. The UES and PR's effects on HRQoL were significant at lower SOC levels and diminished at higher SOC levels. Conclusion: Practitioners can incorporate SOC and adaptive CBs, including PR and UES, into the rehabilitation programmes to improve HRQoL in patients. © 2021 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Designed polyelectrolyte shell on magnetite nanocore for dilution-resistant biocompatible magnetic fluids.

Magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) coated with poly(acrylic acid-co-maleic acid) polyelectrolyte (PAM) have been prepared with the aim of improving colloidal stability of core-shell nanoparticles for biomedical applications and enhancing the durability of the coating shells. FTIR-ATR measurements reveal two types of interaction of PAM with MNPs: hydrogen bonding and inner-sphere metal-carboxylate complex formation. The mechanism of the latter is ligand exchange between uncharged -OH groups of the surface and -COO(-) anionic moieties of the polyelectrolyte as revealed by adsorption and electrokinetic experiments. The aqueous dispersion of PAM@MNP particles (magnetic fluids - MFs) tolerates physiological salt concentration at composition corresponding to the plateau of the high-affinity adsorption isotherm. The plateau is reached at small amount of added PAM and at low concentration of nonadsorbed PAM, making PAM highly efficient for coating MNPs. The adsorbed PAM layer is not desorbed during dilution. The performance of the PAM shell is superior to that of poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), often used in biocompatible MFs. This is explained by the different adsorption mechanisms; metal-carboxylate cannot form in the case of PAA. Molecular-level understanding of the protective shell formation on MNPs presented here improves fundamentally the colloidal techniques used in core-shell nanoparticle production for nanotechnology applications