Knowledge and Attitudes about Precautionary Measures of COVID-19 among Undergraduate Students: A Comparative Study

Background and objective: The pandemic caused by novel Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious respiratory illness caused by a new coronavirus that first appeared in China at the end of December 2019 and quickly spread worldwide. The aims of this study are to assess undergraduate students’ knowledge and attitudes of the precautionary measures toward COVID-19. Methods: A descriptive comparative study design was used from 2nd January to 1st March 2022. A purposive sampling technique was used to collect the data. All students (240 students) in second grade from the nursing department and the English department at Gasha Technical Institute, Kurdistan Region/Iraq, were recruited and completed a self-reported questionnaire. Result: Around 70% of nursing students and 69% of students in the English department were males, and most students in both fields were aged between 18 and 22 years old. A total of 83.3 % of students in nursing and 77.5% of students in the English department were single. However, the rate of married students (21.7%) was higher in the English department. More than half of the nursing students (63.3%) showed good knowledge, 31.7% showed medium knowledge, and 5.0% showed poor knowledge. Nursing students’ good attitude was 15.8%. In contrast, 30.0% of students in the English department had good knowledge, 50.8% had medium knowledge, and 19.2% had poor knowledge. Good attitude of students in the English department was 5%. Conclusion: Overall, a higher level of knowledge was observed in nursing students than students in the English department. Also, positive attitude toward COVID-19 was higher among nursing students

A Qualitative Investigation into the Lived Experiences of Critical Care Nurses Working on Night Shifts

Background and objectives: Shift work is used in the hospitals and residential treatment centres to provide patients with continuous health care. During their night shift, nurses are often faced with different health problems either due to the stressful work environment or because of the sophisticated instruments to be utilized in intensive care units. The present study was aimed at investigating the lived experience of nurses working on the night shifts at Rizgary Teaching Hospital located in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan Region. Methods: A qualitative phenomenological study was conducted to describe the lived experiences of nurses working on night shifts. In doing so and in order to collect the required data, open-ended semi-structured in-depth interviews were carried out to explore thoughts, feelings, and lived experiences of 15 nurses who were working on the night shifts in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Rizgary Teaching Hospital in Erbil. The collected data were then analyzed by Van Manen’s (1990) method. Results: Study participants were between 26 and 38 years old. The majority were male (60%) and 40% were female. Regarding marital status, 10 participants were married and 5 were single. Most of the nurses had Bachelor degrees (86.6%). The respondents work experience was between 3 and 8 years. Almost all of the participating nurses had similar lived experiences during their night shifts. The nurses' lived experiences gave way to the emergence of four themes namely workload, psychosocial issues, sleep disturbance and physiological issues. Conclusion: The present study showed that nurses working on night shifts faced many problems and issues such as poor sleep quality sleep, working for a long time, fatigue and anxiety, back pain, mood disturbance and lack of concentration

Challenges of Implementing Nurse Educator Core Competencies as Per-ceived by Clinical Instructors in Erbil City, Kurdistan Region, Iraq.

Background and objective: The quality of nursing education in the clinical setting in nursing colleges, especially in the Middle East, is based solely on the clinical instructors’ ability to provide and creating the most productive clinical environment possible. The World Health Organization (WHO) identified eight domains as core competencies for clinical nurse educators. However, studies on contemporary clinical education and educators’ role indicate that clinical instructors continuously face challenges in adopting the competences recognized by the WHO. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the challenges of implementing the nurse educator core competencies as perceived by the clinical instructors in Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Method: The interpretive phenomenological approach of the qualitative study and SWOT analysis was adopted to explore the clinical instructors’ experience of clinical education’s challenges. Result: The main challenges of the academic institutions were shortages of qualified clinical instructors, lack of confidence among instructors, and difficulty in achieving learning outcomes. Challenges reported among health institutions include inappropriate selection for managerial roles, poor recognition of clinical education, and poor teaching environments. Conclusion: The study results highlighted challenges for clinical instructors to carry out their role in a safe and less stressful environment, including inadequate strategic plans for clinical teaching from academic institutions and stakeholder involvement in health institutions

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease as a Cardiovascular Diseases Risk Factor in Erbil

Background and objectives: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has been reported as the most common cause of morbidity and mortality all over the world. The present study aimed to investigate a possible link between chronic obstructive pulmonary dis-ease and increased risk of cardiovascular disease in Erbil, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Methods: A quantitative, case-control study was conducted on 159 patients with COPD as the case group and 159 adult people without COPD as control group. Case groups were patients who have COPD and admitted to the medical ward at Hawler Teaching Hospital and Rzgary Teaching Hospital. Control groups were those without COPD and went to City Park and Mala-fandy Primary Health Center. Data was collected from January 2018 to August 2018 through direct interview and using a questionnaire. A spirometer machine was used to confirm the diagnosis of COPD. Data analysis was carried out through descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage), skeunosis-kurtosis test, t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, Pearson's Chi-squared test, and univariate logistic regression. Results: Compared to the control group, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary dis-ease were found to be at a significantly higher risk of developing hypertension, diabetes, ischemic heart disease, dyslipidemia, and lung cancer. Moreover, there was an inverse correlation between increased severity of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and in-creased hypertension and stroke. In addition, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, hypertension, diabetes, and dyslipidemia were found to be significant risk factors for ischemic heart disease. Conclusions: The risk of cardiovascular comorbidities was significantly higher in the patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and there is a significant association between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cardiovascular comorbidities

Nurses’ experiences and perceptions of medication administration errors

Background and objective: Medication administration errors are the most common medical errors that happen in hospital settings. This study aimed to find out the most common types of medication administration errors done by the hospital nurses and identifying factors that lead to medication administration errors. Methods: This cross-sectional survey was conducted across Erbil teaching hospitals over a period of three months from June 2016 to September 2016. A convenience sample of 250 nurses who were working in acute, subacute, and general wards and had direct contact with the medication administration were included in this study. Data were collected using a self-reported questionnaire. Results: According to this study the most common types of medication errors were, noticing allergy after drugs administration and administering drugs at a wrong time. The highest leading factors of medication administration errors were illegible medication orders of the physicians, lack of adequate staffing and workload. High statistical differences were found between the frequency of medication administration errors with nurses’ educational level, overall working experience, and nurses understanding language. Conclusion: This study concluded that medication administration errors have multiple causes and types of errors are various

Nurses’ knowledge of the nutritional management of renal failure in Erbil City, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Background and objective: Renal failure is a worldwide public health concern due to the significant increase of patients each year. Diet and nutrition play a crucial role in symptom management, quality of life and survival of renal failure patients, as well as the prevention of disease progression. This study aimed to assess nurses’ knowledge of the nutritional management of patients with renal failure and to find out the relationship between nurses’ knowledge and their socio-demographic characteristics. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used from April to August 2016. A purposive sample of 51 nurses at the Dialysis Unit of Hawler Teaching Hospital and Hawler Dialysis Center, Kurdistan Region, Iraq were recruited and completed a self-reported questionnaire. Results: Most participating nurses were male (76.5%), and the majority (52.9%) were between 26-32 years old . Most of them were married (68.6%), had a diploma certificate (58.7%) with 37.3% having 4-7 years of working experience at the two above-noted dialysis centers. The majority of nurses (70.6%) had fair knowledge score, while 17.6% had a good knowledge score and 11.8% had a low knowledge score. Conclusion: The majority of nurses had fair knowledge regarding nutritional management for renal failure patients