Spazio-tempo di De Sitter

La presente tesi è un elaborato sulla teoria della Relatività Generale. Nel capitolo 1 si introduce la teoria, partendo dai difetti della teoria della Relatività Ristretta e dal Principio di Equivalenza, l'essenza della Relatività Generale, fino ad arrivare alla struttura delle equazioni di campo di Einstein. Nei capitoli 2 e 3 evidenzieremo come le ipotesi di simmetria sferica ci condurranno a due importanti soluzioni delle equazioni di Einstein, dovute a Schwarzschild e a de Sitter. Nel capitolo 2 si studierà la soluzione di Schwarzschild, dando particolare attenzione al legame tra le singolarità della soluzione e la scelta del sistema di coordinate. Il capitolo 2 farà da guida per la costruzione della soluzione di de Sitter in coordinate statiche, che verrà trattata nel capitolo 3 dopo una breve introduzione alla costante cosmologica

Livelli di presenteismo fra gli infermieri italiani. Uno studio multicentrico

BACKGROUND: Presenteeism represents the need to "get to work although we feel sick"; thus, affecting the quality of work, leading to errors or omissions, reducing productivity and increasing costs. Nurses are among the job categories with the highest degree of Presenteeism, which may negatively affect work quality. Aims and objectives: To assess the prevalence of Presenteeism among Italian nurses. METHODS: A cross-sectional, multicentric study was carried out from January to December 2015 in a sample of Italian nurses. A total of 652 nurses completed the questionnaire. The mean Stanford Presenteeism Scale (SPS-6) total score was 21.6 (±4.0). Nurses showed high Presenteeism levels when considering the “Avoiding distractions” and “Completing work” sections of the Scale. RESULTS: Male nurses showed a lower degree of Presenteeism than women, which also tended to be less severe with increasing age (both p<0.05). The presence of ≥1 self-reported health problem was associated with an increase in the score (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: In line with previous studies performed outside Italy, Presenteeism appear to be a widespread condition also among Italian nurses, requiring appropriate treatment and recognition by healthcare providers. The results of this survey might be used as a minimum, most likely underestimated basis for targeted public health policies.INTRODUZIONE: Il presenteismo rappresenta la necessità di "mettersi al lavoro anche se ci si sente male"; influenzando così la qualità del lavoro, portando a errori o omissioni, riducendo la produttività e aumentando i costi. Gli infermieri sono annoverati tra i professionisti con il più alto grado di presenteismo, con potenziali effetti negativi sulla qualità del lavoro. OBIETTIVI: Accertare la prevalenza del Presenteismo tra gli infermieri italiani. METODI: E’ stato condotto uno studio trasversale, multicentrico da gennaio a dicembre 2015 su un campione di infermieri italiani. 652 infermieri hanno completato il questionario. Il punteggio totale medio alla Stanford Presenteeism Scale (SPS-6) era 21.6 (± 4.0). Gli infermieri hanno mostrato elevati livelli di Presenteismo nelle sezioni: "Evitare distrazioni" e "Completare il lavoro" della Scala. RISULTATI: Gli infermieri maschi hanno mostrato livell inferiori di Presenteismo rispetto alle donne, che tendevano anche ad essere minori con l'aumentare dell'età (entrambi p <0,05). La presenza di ≥1 problema di salute auto-riferito è stata associata ad un aumento del punteggio (p <0,05). CONCLUSIONI: In linea con studi precedenti effettuati nel contesto internazionale, il Presenteismo sembra essere una condizione diffusa anche tra gli infermieri italiani, che dovrebbe essere adeguatamente riconosciuta da parte dei manager sanitari. I risultati di questa indagine potrebbero essere utilizzati come spunto di riflessione, per implementare mirate strategie di politica sanitaria

Presenteeism levels among Italian nurses. A multicentric survey [Livelli di presenteismo fra gli infermieri italiani. Uno studio multicentrico]

INTRODUZIONE: Il presenteismo rappresenta la necessità di "mettersi al lavoro anche se ci si sente male"; influenzando così la qualità del lavoro, portando a errori o omissioni, riducendo la produttività e aumentando i costi. Gli infermieri sono annoverati tra i professionisti con il più alto grado di presenteismo, con potenziali effetti negativi sulla qualità del lavoro. OBIETTIVI: Accertare la prevalenza del Presenteismo tra gli infermieri italiani. METODI: E’ stato condotto uno studio trasversale, multicentrico da gennaio a dicembre 2015 su un campione di infermieri italiani. 652 infermieri hanno completato il questionario. Il punteggio totale medio alla Stanford Presenteeism Scale (SPS-6) era 21.6 (± 4.0). Gli infermieri hanno mostrato elevati livelli di Presenteismo nelle sezioni: "Evitare distrazioni" e "Completare il lavoro" della Scala. RISULTATI: Gli infermieri maschi hanno mostrato livell inferiori di Presenteismo rispetto alle donne, che tendevano anche ad essere minori con l'aumentare dell'età. La presenza di ≥1 problema di salute auto-riferito è stata associata ad un aumento del punteggio. CONCLUSIONI: In linea con studi precedenti effettuati nel contesto internazionale, il Presenteismo sembra essere una condizione diffusa anche tra gli infermieri italiani, che dovrebbe essere adeguatamente riconosciuta da parte dei manager sanitari. I risultati di questa indagine potrebbero essere utilizzati come spunto di riflessione, per implementare mirate strategie di politica sanitaria.BACKGROUND: Presenteeism represents the need to "get to work although we feel sick"; thus, affecting the quality of work, leading to errors or omissions, reducing productivity and increasing costs. Nurses are among the job categories with the highest degree of Presenteeism, which may negatively affect work quality. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To assess the prevalence of Presenteeism among Italian nurses. METHODS: A cross-sectional, multicentric study was carried out from January to December 2015 in a sample of Italian nurses. A total of 652 nurses completed the questionnaire. The mean Stanford Presenteeism Scale (SPS-6) total score was 21.6 (±4.0). Nurses showed high Presenteeism levels when considering the "Avoiding distractions" and "Completing work" sections of the Scale. RESULTS: Male nurses showed a lower degree of Presenteeism than women, which also tended to be less severe with increasing age. The presence of ≥1 self-reported health problem was associated with an increase in the score. CONCLUSIONS: In line with previous studies performed outside Italy, Presenteeism appear to be a widespread condition also among Italian nurses, requiring appropriate treatment and recognition by healthcare providers. The results of this survey might be used as a minimum, most likely underestimated basis for targeted public health policies

[Patterns of experienced and anticipated discrimination in patients with schizophremia. Italian results from the INDIGO international multisite project]

To describe patterns of experienced and anticipated discrimination in a sample of schizophrenic patients recruited in Italy in the context of the International Study of Discrimination and Stigma Outcomes (INDIGO)

Cohort study of electronic cigarette use: effectiveness and safety at 24 months

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the safety and effectiveness of e-cigarettes, by comparing users of only e-cigarettes, smokers of only tobacco cigarettes and dual users. DESIGN: Prospective cohort study. We update previous 12-month findings and report the results of the 24-month follow-up. DATA SOURCES: Direct contact and questionnaires by phone or via internet. METHODS: Adults (30-75 years) were classified as: (1) tobacco smokers, if they smoked ≥1 tobacco cigarette/day, (2) e-cigarette users, if they inhaled ≥50 puffs/week of any type of e-cigarette and (3) dual users, if they smoked tobacco cigarettes and also used e-cigarettes. Carbon monoxide levels were tested in 50% of those declaring tobacco smoking abstinence. Hospital discharge data were used to validate possibly related serious adverse events in 46.0% of the sample. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Sustained abstinence from tobacco cigarettes and/or e-cigarettes after 24 months, the difference in the number of tobacco cigarettes smoked daily between baseline and 24 months, possibly related serious adverse events. RESULTS: Data at 24 months were available for 229 e-cigarette users, 480 tobacco smokers and 223 dual users (overall response rate 68.8%). Of the e-cigarette users, 61.1% remained abstinent from tobacco (while 23.1% and 26.0% of tobacco-only smokers and dual users achieved tobacco abstinence). The rate (18.8%) of stopping use of either product (tobacco and/or e-cigarettes) was not higher for e-cigarette users compared with tobacco smokers or dual users. Self-rated health and adverse events were similar between all groups. Among those continuing to smoke, there were no differences in the proportion of participants reducing tobacco cigarette consumption by 50% or more, the average daily number of cigarettes and the average self-rated health by baseline group. Most dual users at baseline abandoned e-cigarettes and continued to smoke tobacco. Those who continued dual using or converted from tobacco smoking to dual use during follow-up experienced significant improvements in the 3 outcomes compared with those who continued or switched to only smoking tobacco (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: E-cigarette use alone might support tobacco quitters remaining abstinent from smoking. However, dual use did not improve the likelihood of quitting tobacco or e-cigarette use, but may be helpful to reduce tobacco consumption. Adverse event data were scarce and must be considered preliminary. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT01785537

Effects of a 3-Week In-Hospital Body Weight Reduction Program on Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Muscle Performance, and Fatigue : A Retrospective Study in a Population of Obese Adults with or without Metabolic Syndrome

Background: In clinical practice, there is the diffuse conviction that obese subjects with metabolic syndrome may be more difficult to treat. Objectives and methods: The aim of the present study was that to investigate the effectiveness of a 3-week in-hospital body weight reduction program (BWRP) in a large population of obese subjects with and without metabolic syndrome (n = 1922; 222 men and 1700 women, age range 18-83 yr). Outcomes such as body mass index (BMI), total (TOT) and HDL cholesterol, systolic and diastolic blood pressures (SBP and DBP, respectively), coronary heart disease (CHD) score, fatigue severity score (FSS), and stair climbing test (SCT) time were evaluated before and after the intervention (\u394). A sex-, BMI-, and age-related stratification of the obese population with or without metabolic syndrome was applied. Results: When compared to obese subjects without metabolic syndrome, at the basal conditions, obese subjects had a poorer cardiometabolic profile, as demonstrated by higher triglycerides, TOT-cholesterol, DBP, SBP, and CHD score, and a more compromised muscle performance (evaluated by SCT), associated with more perception of fatigue (measured by FSS). Nevertheless, obese subjects with metabolic syndrome obtained more benefits from BWRP than those without metabolic syndrome for some outcomes (i.e., \u394TOT-cholesterol, \u394SBP, and \u394CHD score). Despite these differences, the BWRP-induced weight loss was similar between the two groups (i.e., \u394BMI) as well as the gain of muscle performance (i.e., \u394SCT) and the reduction of fatigue (i.e., \u394FSS). Interestingly, the potentially deleterious fall in HDL-cholesterol levels after BWRP was less evident in obese subjects with metabolic syndrome than those without metabolic syndrome. When pooling all data, the \u394CHD score was associated with age, sex, and metabolic syndrome. The remaining outcomes, such as \u394BMI, \u394FSS, and \u394SCT time, were associated with sex and age but not with metabolic syndrome. Finally, \u394BMI was positively correlated with \u394CHD score, \u394FSS, and \u394SCT time in both obese subjects without metabolic syndrome and obese subjects with metabolic syndrome. Conclusions: When comparing obese subjects undergoing a BWRP, metabolic syndrome is not a negative predictive factor affecting the effectiveness of this intervention in terms of weight loss, muscle performance, and psychological well-being

The Appetite-Suppressant and GLP-1-Stimulating Effects of Whey Proteins in Obese Subjects are Associated with Increased Circulating Levels of Specific Amino Acids

The satiating effect of whey proteins depends upon their unique amino acid composition because there is no difference when comparing whey proteins or a mix of amino acids mimicking the amino acid composition of whey proteins. The specific amino acids underlying the satiating effect of whey proteins have not been investigated to date. Aims and Methods. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the appetite-suppressant effect of an isocaloric drink containing whey proteins or maltodextrins on appetite (satiety/hunger measured by a visual analogue scale or VAS), anorexigenic gastrointestinal peptides (circulating levels of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) and peptide tyrosine tyrosine (PYY)) and amino acids (circulating levels of single, total [TAA] and branched-chain amino acids [BCAA]) in a cohort of obese female subjects (n = 8; age: 18.4 \ub1 3.1 years; body mass index, BMI: 39.2 \ub1 4.6 kg/m2). Results. Each drink significantly increased satiety and decreased hunger, the effects being more evident with whey proteins than maltodextrins. Similarly, circulating levels of GLP-1, PYY and amino acids (TAA, BCAA and alanine, arginine, asparagine, citrulline, glutamine, hydroxyproline, isoleucine, histidine, leucine, lysine, methionine, ornithine, phenylalanine, proline, serine, threonine, tyrosine, and valine) were significantly higher with whey proteins than maltodextrins. In subjects administered whey proteins (but not maltodextrins), isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline, tyrosine, and valine were significantly correlated with hunger (negatively), satiety, and GLP-1 (positively). Conclusions. Eight specific amino acids (isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline, tyrosine, and valine) were implicated in the appetite-suppressant and GLP-1-stimulating effects of whey proteins, which may be mediated by their binding with nutrient-sensing receptors expressed by L cells within the gastrointestinal wall. The long-term satiating effect of whey proteins and the effectiveness of a supplementation with these amino acids (i.e., as a nutraceutical intervention) administered during body weight reduction programs need to be further investigated

Confronto tra sutura con antibatterico vs sutura standard nella prevenzione delle infezioni del sito chirurgico

RIASSUNTOLe infezioni del sito chirurgico rappresentano ancora oggi un problema aperto, con prolungamento dei tempi di degenza e relativo aumento dei costi sanitari ed assicurativi. La recente letteratura evidenzia come il triclosan® possa essere utilizzato con sicurezza per ridurre l'incidenza di infezioni. In questo studio vengono confrontati due gruppi di pazienti sottoposti in regime di elezione a chirurgia "pulita". Il follow up, condotto trenta giorni dopo l'intervento chirurgico attraverso intervista telefonica, come da protocollo del Sistema Nazionale di sorveglianza delle infezioni del sito chirurgico, ha mostrato migliori outcomes, anche se non statisticamente significativi, in termini di prevenzione del sito chirurgico, utilizzando le suture con antibatterico rispetto a quelle standard.Parole chiave: infezioni del sito chirurgico, sicurezza, gestione del rischioComparison between antibacterial coated suture vs standard suture to prevent the surgical site infectionsABSTRACTThe surgical site infections (SSI) still represent an issue, which causes prolonged hospital staying, major costs for both healthcare system and professional insurance. Recent studies enlighten that using the antibacterial agent triclosan® leads to decrease infections rates. In this observational study we compared two groups of patients undergoing scheduled the so called clean surgery. The absence of SSI was assessed in all patients, 30 days later the surgery, through a telephone interview as indicated by the National Group for SSI surveillance protocol. The use of antibacterial sutures shows to be successful in preventing the SSI in comparison to standard sutures, even if results are not statistically significant.Keywords: surgical site infections, safety management, risk managemen

Nursing Education: challenges and perspectives in a COVID-19 age

The COVID-19 outbreak deeply changed our lives on different levels. Social restrictions and distancing shaped in a different way our view of social relationships and behaviours. Like many aspects of daily life, also education has undergone radical changes. Nursing care was strongly affected by the outbreak, not only due to the risks in everyday practice, the heavy workload or the impact on nurses’ daily lives outside the healthcare settings, but also because nursing is caring profession and it embeds in its roots the close relationship with the patient, the touch, the patients’ body proximity as a way to communicate and to deliver an effective nursing care. All these issues, when brought in nursing education are also a learning opportunity for students and a way to develop their professional identity and to focusing on the nursing role. The COVID-19 outbreak heavily hit the clinical learning environments, as they are healthcare settings. The situation affected students’ learning opportunities, since clinical placements were suspended, Universities closed and in-person courses moved into online teaching. While lessons and courses rapidly switched into online teaching, in order to safeguard students’ education and faculty’s activity, it was not possible to manage the pre-clinical activities, such as simulations and labs, in order to support technical and relational competences. Most of all, it was not possible to arrange the clinical placements due to the uncertainty of the healthcare settings and the social and organizational restrictions to limiting unnecessary accesses to the services, as recommended by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2020). Recently, many authors have explored the issues related to the future of nursing education. In detail, an emerging issue is how it will be possible to educating nurses in a society facing isolation and social distance measures, but at the same time, in a society that needs more and more prepared clinical nurses (Dewart et al. 2020). Challenges connected to clinical learning environments Nursing curricula at the European level need to spend at least half of the overall education into clinical practice (European Directive 2013/55/EU). The COVID-19 outbreak affected the possibility to fulfil the criteria and it should be necessary to delay the graduation of undergraduate nursing students to achieve the formal standards for nursing education. Furthermore, it is not clear the impact of this situation in achieving and in maintaining the nursing students’ clinical competences. Competence development and maintenance both require a constant exposure to clinical practice, especially in the last year students, which need soon to face the professional role. Competence is considered as a setting- and time- specific concept where knowledge, skills and behaviours merge together. However, even in professional practice, there are no clear standards to certify competence maintenance over time (Casey et al., 2017). The effect of the break from clinical learning imposed by the outbreak is far to be measured, but we could reasonably suppose that students’ competences are not still stable over time in undergraduate education and they could be affected by a mastery loss. On the other side, the first year students need clinical practice to adjust into the nursing role and, often, to be aware of their choice in nursing, in order to possibly change their educational career. At the beginning of nursing education students experience uncertainty and the behavioural answer to these feeling depend on their motivation and their coping strategies with the academic and the nursing practice’s demands (Ha &amp; Pepin, 2018). When the direct relationship with the academic and the clinical environment is lost or switched to a virtual one, students lose an opportunity to cope and to test their expectations with the choice they made. The first clinical internship experience represents, in a sense, an imprinting moment for the professional future. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, many students not only have lost meaningful chances of clinical learning, but they will also not be able to recover them, with important implications to their competencies acquisition and professional identity, that can be built only in the real clinical settings. Perspectives to push forward nursing education The COVID-19 outbreak also highlighted the relevance of nurses in facing the pandemic: nurses have been in the frontline in critical care, in supporting the community health, in preventing the contagion spread in the population. In this vein, the current pandemic represents an opportunity to drawing attention to the community-based nursing care, where nurses play a pivotal role in maintaining public health and to effectively manage further potential health emergencies. These all are relevant insights of the nursing role and they state the need to re-think nursing curricula and the education in facing infective diseases and in managing public health. Moreover, nurses demonstrated their readiness in facing public health issues on many levels, on broader levels than hospital care. This could have an impact on society’s perception of nurses and nursing and it could motivate the new generations to start a nursing career. The next year will tell us if this will be true or not, but for sure, now, nursing education has a chance to innovate both the study plan and the way to plan differently clinical learning. The study plans should implement more public health contents by educating students also in contact tracing activities and the inter-professional collaboration with public health assistants. Nurses could play a pivotal role in educating people at home in managing health at home, especially with chronically ill patients. Furthermore, nurses have a broader view on the community healthcare services to taking care of people at home when disability, chronic diseases, or social issues occur. COVID-19 outbreak deeply changed our healthcare systems’ view and so should change our nursing education view, in a way to highlight more the nursing role outside the hospital in integrating different views of care and healthcare professional collaboration. Nursing curricula should also focus more on patients’ empowerment and self-care. Healthcare communication has been crucial in promoting healthy and safe behaviours in the population during the outbreak. The roots of nursing are embedded into the proximity to patients’ needs and in finding the right way to improve people’s healthy behaviours. This pandemic brought us to disclose more these roots. The clinical nursing environments should also be re-though in order to enhance the healthcare settings’ integration and the transition of care. Nursing students should be more prepared to deepen patients’ biography, to conduct an in-depth interview useful to understand their habits, the contacts they had, in order to take in charge also the family members, especially when a contagion risk is a concrete possibility. The hospital-oriented education could had weakened a comprehensive view of patient’s history. This pandemic shifted also the focus on how hospital care is deeply linked with public health issues and on how public health issues affect nursing care. If holistic care was a statement and a value of nursing care and nursing education, now holistic care is an imperative need to deliver effective nursing care. Nursing education has to be set for at least 50% in clinical practice, but until now no further details have been stated about the distribution of this 50% in different clinical areas. Clinical competences should be coherent with the population needs and the priorities of the society; nursing education has the duty to provide nurses educated to face the worldwide priorities. It should be clear now that nursing education need to be specific to the area of nursing being practiced in the community and hospital environments. Clinical learning needs to consider how these times differently shaped the society’s needs. Further strategies should be also implemented to improve digitalization into clinical learning. In virtual education there are many factors, which contribute to effective and active learning and which should be considered in the implementation of the virtual learning environment. In detail it is important to consider technological barriers, student expectations and the students’ engagement in simulated environments. Moreover, the planning of virtual clinical educational programs should include effective student-to-teacher and student-to-student communication strategies and the design of specific activities to ensure students’ support (Jowsey et al. 2020). The idea to implement virtual clinical education is not new: both technical and relational skills can be exercised virtually and this was acknowledged as a useful way to test and to educate clinical competences in a safe and non-threatening environment. Although these technological resources are known and available, during the COVID-19 pandemic, heterogeneity has emerged within the nursing faculties. Not all academic institutions have effectively implemented technology to support students’ learning, perhaps because of the sudden and unexpected changes in the education system, which have imposed the use of technological resources not always recognized as regulatory requirements within the faculties. Indeed, the rapid transition from face to face education to virtual education has highlighted several problems related to virtual learning. Following the pandemic, many universities were able to offer education in an emergency distance learning programs but not a structured online education based on “well-considered, durable learning plans” (Morin, 2020). However, COVID-19 is an ongoing crisis but it could be the catalyst that drives nursing education towards innovations and a flexible but effective use of online learning. In spite of the potential of a well-planned online education, we should also consider the risk of inequality issues affecting students’ capability to achieve their learning outcomes; especially when they live in disadvantaged social contexts, with any access to Internet or Wi-Fi or obsolete computer. To encourage a more inclusive distance education some strategies should be implemented, as: to create small classes; to promote new teaching methods as inter-professional education; to create a structured mentoring program in supporting the relationship with students; to provide immediate and constructive feedback; to re-learn how to manage time, while supporting participative learning. On the other hand, distance learning might curb the burden of tuition fees, which could make higher education inaccessible for many individuals. In this vein, virtual teaching could allow more flexibility and a wider access to education (Murphy, 2020). For these reasons, it is possible that the future of undergraduate nursing education will strongly consider distance learning, and it will improve a blended approach to teaching clinical competences. This could represent an opportunity, as long as more efforts are made to improve transparency, accountability, service orientation and inclusion to education but also associated with some fears in respect to surveillance and control, privacy issues, power relations, and inequalities (Murphy, 2020). Conclusions The COVID-19 outbreak deeply affected nursing education, anyway together with the challenges, many new perspectives have been disclosed to reform nursing curricula or to implement new strategies in clinical learning. Those challenges and perspectives should push nursing education forward to innovate and they could shape new approaches to implement contents and competences in tune with the evolution of the societal needs. The new generations of graduate nurses will face a new normality. As the way of thinking nursing care changed, nursing education and clinical learning are the first drivers to shape this new normality in nursing. This historical period shapes a new educational environment deeply embedded in strong roots, and ready to face new perspectives to developing nursing care.&nbsp;The COVID-19 outbreak deeply changed our lives on different levels. Social restrictions and distancing shaped in a different way our view of social relationships and behaviours. Like many aspects of daily life, also education has undergone radical changes. Nursing care was strongly affected by the outbreak, not only due to the risks in everyday practice, the heavy workload or the impact on nurses’ daily lives outside the healthcare settings, but also because nursing is caring profession and it embeds in its roots the close relationship with the patient, the touch, the patients’ body proximity as a way to communicate and to deliver an effective nursing care. All these issues, when brought in nursing education are also a learning opportunity for students and a way to develop their professional identity and to focusing on the nursing role. The COVID-19 outbreak heavily hit the clinical learning environments, as they are healthcare settings. The situation affected students’ learning opportunities, since clinical placements were suspended, Universities closed and in-person courses moved into online teaching. While lessons and courses rapidly switched into online teaching, in order to safeguard students’ education and faculty’s activity, it was not possible to manage the pre-clinical activities, such as simulations and labs, in order to support technical and relational competences. Most of all, it was not possible to arrange the clinical placements due to the uncertainty of the healthcare settings and the social and organizational restrictions to limiting unnecessary accesses to the services, as recommended by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2020). Recently, many authors have explored the issues related to the future of nursing education. In detail, an emerging issue is how it will be possible to educating nurses in a society facing isolation and social distance measures, but at the same time, in a society that needs more and more prepared clinical nurses (Dewart et al. 2020). Challenges connected to clinical learning environments Nursing curricula at the European level need to spend at least half of the overall education into clinical practice (European Directive 2013/55/EU). The COVID-19 outbreak affected the possibility to fulfil the criteria and it should be necessary to delay the graduation of undergraduate nursing students to achieve the formal standards for nursing education. Furthermore, it is not clear the impact of this situation in achieving and in maintaining the nursing students’ clinical competences. Competence development and maintenance both require a constant exposure to clinical practice, especially in the last year students, which need soon to face the professional role. Competence is considered as a setting- and time- specific concept where knowledge, skills and behaviours merge together. However, even in professional practice, there are no clear standards to certify competence maintenance over time (Casey et al., 2017). The effect of the break from clinical learning imposed by the outbreak is far to be measured, but we could reasonably suppose that students’ competences are not still stable over time in undergraduate education and they could be affected by a mastery loss. On the other side, the first year students need clinical practice to adjust into the nursing role and, often, to be aware of their choice in nursing, in order to possibly change their educational career. At the beginning of nursing education students experience uncertainty and the behavioural answer to these feeling depend on their motivation and their coping strategies with the academic and the nursing practice’s demands (Ha &amp; Pepin, 2018). When the direct relationship with the academic and the clinical environment is lost or switched to a virtual one, students lose an opportunity to cope and to test their expectations with the choice they made. The first clinical internship experience represents, in a sense, an imprinting moment for the professional future. Due to COVID-19 pandemic, many students not only have lost meaningful chances of clinical learning, but they will also not be able to recover them, with important implications to their competencies acquisition and professional identity, that can be built only in the real clinical settings. Perspectives to push forward nursing education The COVID-19 outbreak also highlighted the relevance of nurses in facing the pandemic: nurses have been in the frontline in critical care, in supporting the community health, in preventing the contagion spread in the population. In this vein, the current pandemic represents an opportunity to drawing attention to the community-based nursing care, where nurses play a pivotal role in maintaining public health and to effectively manage further potential health emergencies. These all are relevant insights of the nursing role and they state the need to re-think nursing curricula and the education in facing infective diseases and in managing public health. Moreover, nurses demonstrated their readiness in facing public health issues on many levels, on broader levels than hospital care. This could have an impact on society’s perception of nurses and nursing and it could motivate the new generations to start a nursing career. The next year will tell us if this will be true or not, but for sure, now, nursing education has a chance to innovate both the study plan and the way to plan differently clinical learning. The study plans should implement more public health contents by educating students also in contact tracing activities and the inter-professional collaboration with public health assistants. Nurses could play a pivotal role in educating people at home in managing health at home, especially with chronically ill patients. Furthermore, nurses have a broader view on the community healthcare services to taking care of people at home when disability, chronic diseases, or social issues occur. COVID-19 outbreak deeply changed our healthcare systems’ view and so should change our nursing education view, in a way to highlight more the nursing role outside the hospital in integrating different views of care and healthcare professional collaboration. Nursing curricula should also focus more on patients’ empowerment and self-care. Healthcare communication has been crucial in promoting healthy and safe behaviours in the population during the outbreak. The roots of nursing are embedded into the proximity to patients’ needs and in finding the right way to improve people’s healthy behaviours. This pandemic brought us to disclose more these roots. The clinical nursing environments should also be re-though in order to enhance the healthcare settings’ integration and the transition of care. Nursing students should be more prepared to deepen patients’ biography, to conduct an in-depth interview useful to understand their habits, the contacts they had, in order to take in charge also the family members, especially when a contagion risk is a concrete possibility. The hospital-oriented education could had weakened a comprehensive view of patient’s history. This pandemic shifted also the focus on how hospital care is deeply linked with public health issues and on how public health issues affect nursing care. If holistic care was a statement and a value of nursing care and nursing education, now holistic care is an imperative need to deliver effective nursing care. Nursing education has to be set for at least 50% in clinical practice, but until now no further details have been stated about the distribution of this 50% in different clinical areas. Clinical competences should be coherent with the population needs and the priorities of the society; nursing education has the duty to provide nurses educated to face the worldwide priorities. It should be clear now that nursing education need to be specific to the area of nursing being practiced in the community and hospital environments. Clinical learning needs to consider how these times differently shaped the society’s needs. Further strategies should be also implemented to improve digitalization into clinical learning. In virtual education there are many factors, which contribute to effective and active learning and which should be considered in the implementation of the virtual learning environment. In detail it is important to consider technological barriers, student expectations and the students’ engagement in simulated environments. Moreover, the planning of virtual clinical educational programs should include effective student-to-teacher and student-to-student communication strategies and the design of specific activities to ensure students’ support (Jowsey et al. 2020). The idea to implement virtual clinical education is not new: both technical and relational skills can be exercised virtually and this was acknowledged as a useful way to test and to educate clinical competences in a safe and non-threatening environment. Although these technological resources are known and available, during the COVID-19 pandemic, heterogeneity has emerged within the nursing faculties. Not all academic institutions have effectively implemented technology to support students’ learning, perhaps because of the sudden and unexpected changes in the education system, which have imposed the use of technological resources not always recognized as regulatory requirements within the faculties. Indeed, the rapid transition from face to face education to virtual education has highlighted several problems related to virtual learning. Fo

Relationship between peripheral insertion site and catheter-related phlebitis in adult hospitalized patients: a systematic review - Relazione tra sito anatomico di inserimento del catetere venoso periferico e flebite catetere correlata nei pazienti adulti ospedalizzati: una revisione sistematica

AIM. To explore the relationship between the anatomical site of peripheral venous catheteriza- tion and risk of catheter-related phlebitis.BACKGROUND. Peripheral venous catheterization is frequently associated with phlebitis. Recent guidelines, recommend the use of an upper-extremity site for catheter insertion but no univocal consensus exists on the anatomical site with lower risk of phlebitis.DESIGN. Systematic review.METHODS: We searched Medline (PubMed) and CINAHL (EBSCOhost) databases until the end of January 2017. We also reviewed the reference lists of retrieved articles and gray literature was excluded. Searches were limited to articles published in English with no restriction imposed to date of publication. The primary outcome was the incidence of phlebitis associated with anato- mical site of peripheral catheterization. We included randomized controlled trials and observa- tional studies on adult patients who required a peripheral catheter for the administration of medi- cation, intermittent or continuous fluid infusion.RESULTS. Antecubital fossa veins are associated with lower phlebitis rates, while hands veins are the most risky sites to develop phlebitis. There is no consensus regarding vein in forearm.CONCLUSION. Choosing the right anatomical site to insert a peripheral venous catheter is impor- tant to decrease phlebitis rate. Further studies should compare indwelling time in different anato- mical sites with phlebitis rate. A more standardized approach in defining and assessing phlebitis among studies is recommended.KEY WORDS: systematic review, phlebitis, peripheral venous catheterization, anatomical sites.RIASSUNTOOBIETTIVO. Esplorare la relazione tra il sito anatomico di inserimento del catetere venoso peri- ferico e il rischio di flebite correlata.INTRODUZIONE. Il cateterismo venoso periferico è spesso associato a flebiti. Linee Guida recenti raccomandano l'utilizzo delle vene degli arti superiori per l'inserimento del catetere ma non esiste univoco consenso circa il sito anatomico correlato al minor rischio di sviluppare flebite.METODI. Abbiamo effettuato una revisione sistematica della letteratura consultando i database Medline (PubMed) e CINAHL (EBSCOhost) fino al termine del mese di Gennaio 2017. Inoltre, abbiamo revisionato le citazioni bibliografiche degli articoli reperiti e la letteratura grigia è stata esclusa. Sono stati ricercati articoli pubblicati in lingua inglese, senza limiti posti per la data di pubblicazione. Abbiamo incluso: gli studi che riportavano dati sui tassi di flebite associati al sito anatomico di cateterismo periferico; gli studi clinici randomizzati controllati e gli studi osserva- zioni condotti su pazienti adulti che necessitavano dell'inserimento di un catetere venoso perife- rico per la somministrazione intermittente o continua di liquidi e farmaci.RISULTATI. L'inserimento del catetere venoso periferico nelle vene della fossa antecubitale è asso- ciato ad un minor tasso di flebiti, mentre le vene della mano sono il sito a maggior rischio di sviluppare flebite. Non esiste consenso circa le vene dell'avambraccio.CONCLUSIONI. La scelta del sito anatomico corretto per l'inserimento di un catetere venoso peri- ferico è importante per diminuire i tassi di flebite. Ulteriori studi dovrebbero comparare i tassi di flebite associati al tempo di permanenza dei cateteri venosi periferici inseriti in differenti siti anatomici. Si raccomanda, inoltre, un approccio maggiormente standardizzato nella definizione e valutazione del grado di flebite all'interno dei diversi studi.PAROLE CHIAVE: revisione sistematica, flebiti, cateterismo venoso periferico, siti anatomici