Determining the Psychometric Properties of the Turkish Version of the Nurse-Parent Support Tool and the Stress Levels of Parents of Premature Infants Hospitalized in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

PURPOSE: This study was designed to determine the psychometric properties of the Turkish version of the Nurse-Parent Support Tool (NPST) and to investigate the stress levels and perceived support of parents of premature infants hospitalized in neonatal intensive care unit. DESIGN: This study was methodological and descriptive. SETTING AND SAMPLE: The study was conducted with mothers of premature infants hospitalized in a neonatal intensive care unit. METHODS: Data were collected using the mother and infant information forms, the Parental Stress Scale: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and the NPST. RESULTS: According to the factor analysis results, factor 1 of NPST explained 40% of the total variance. Parents experienced stress and they indicated high levels of perceived support, with a mean of 3.69. CONCLUSION: The NPST is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring Turkish parents' perceptions of nurse support. The parents indicated high levels of stress and high levels of perceived support from nurses. IMPLICATIONS: Clinical nurse specialists can determine high-risk parents who need support for infant care and they can also lead to positive patient outcomes and cost reductions. Clinical nurse specialists canncrease care quality with organizational change, and this requires intraprofessional and interdisciplinary collaboration

Determination of the mothers’ milk storage applications

Aim: Breast milk storage conditions, is an important issue alongside the protection of substantiality and immunological content of milk in terms of preventing the development of microorganisms. The purpose of this research was to determine breast milk storage applications of mothers. Methods: This study was a descriptive survey. Ten health care centers were taken for the study scope in Denizli. The study sample consisted of 77 mothers who stored breast milk. Results: 49.4% of the mother’s stores their milk at room temperature, 76.6% of them stores in the refrigerator, 59.7% of them stores it in the deep-freezer. % 41.6 of women use plastic milk storage bags to store milk, 57.1% of them write date on the storage container, 37.7% of them boil in order to clean the containers, 51.9% of them clean containers after each use. Conclusion: It was found incorrect applications, which can adversely affect baby’s health, at the selection of storage containers and cleaning, storage location, duration and thawing the frozen milk stages in this study. Important tasks fall to the healthcare personnel while teaching mothers the right applications for the storage of milk. © GATA

Sex‐related differences in aging rate are associated with sex chromosome system in amphibians

Sex-related differences in mortality are widespread in the animal kingdom. Although studies have shown that sex determination systems might drive lifespan evolution, sex chromosome influence on aging rates have not been investigated so far, likely due to an apparent lack of demographic data from clades including both XY (with heterogametic males) and ZW (heterogametic females) systems. Taking advantage of a unique collection of capture–recapture datasets in amphibians, a vertebrate group where XY and ZW systems have repeatedly evolved over the past 200 million years, we examined whether sex heterogamy can predict sex differences in aging rates and lifespans. We showed that the strength and direction of sex differences in aging rates (and not lifespan) differ between XY and ZW systems. Sex-specific variation in aging rates was moderate within each system, but aging rates tended to be consistently higher in the heterogametic sex. This led to small but detectable effects of sex chromosome system on sex differences in aging rates in our models. Although preliminary, our results suggest that exposed recessive deleterious mutations on the X/Z chromosome (the “unguarded X/Z effect”) or repeat-rich Y/W chromosome (the “toxic Y/W effect”) could accelerate aging in the heterogametic sex in some vertebrate clades

Sex‐related differences in aging rate are associated with sex chromosome system in amphibians

Sex-related differences in mortality are widespread in the animal kingdom. Although studies have shown that sex determination systems might drive lifespan evolution, sex chromosome influences on aging rates have not been investigated so far, likely due to an apparent lack of demographic data from clades including both XY (with heterogametic males) and ZW (heterogametic females) systems. Taking advantage of a unique collection of capture-recapture datasets in amphibians, a vertebrate group where XY and ZW systems have repeatedly evolved over the past 200 million years, we examined whether sex heterogamy can predict sex differences in aging rates and lifespans. We showed that the strength and direction of sex differences in aging rates (and not lifespan) differ between XY and ZW systems. Sex-specific variation in aging rates were moderate within each system, but aging rates tended to be consistently higher in the heterogametic sex. This led to small but detectable effects of sex chromosome system on sex differences in aging rates in our models. Although preliminary, our results suggest that exposed recessive deleterious mutations on the X/Z chromosome (the ‘unguarded X/Z effect’) or repeat-rich Y/W chromosome (the ‘toxic Y/W effect’) could accelerate aging in the heterogametic sex in some vertebrate clades