Demographics and Disaster Risk Reduction and Management of Government Hospital Nurses in Zambales, Philippines

During times of disaster, hospitals play an integral role within the healthcare system by providing essential medical care to their communities. Any incident that causes loss of infrastructure or patient surge, such as a natural disaster, terrorist act, or chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive hazard, often requires a competent response and recovery effort of nurses. This descriptive study aimed to assess the disaster risk reduction and management of government hospital nurses on the components of disaster prevention and mitigation, disaster preparedness, disaster response, and disaster rehabilitation and recovery. The one hundred respondents were randomly selected from the five government hospitals in the province of Zambales, Philippines. The researchers employed various data gathering procedures such as interview and the use of questionnaire. Data were statistically treated using frequency, weighted mean, percentage and ANOVA. The researchers found out that the disaster risk reduction and management by government hospital nurses was frequently practiced. Moreover, it revealed that disaster risk reduction and management has a significant difference on the respondent’s education, training and work experiences. Healthcare systems need to ensure that all healthcare staff including nurses are ready for disaster occurrences. Regardless of the variation of demographic profiles, nurses should know the scope of their responsibility and role in responding to, managing and recovering from disasters impacts

Teachers’ Perceptions of Blended Learning in High School Classrooms

Blended learning is the instructional practice that involves both face-to-face and online learning in classroom instruction. The problem at a small rural school district in the South Carolina is, despite strong evidence of the benefits and use of blended learning, many classroom teachers at the high school level still fail to consistently implement the online component of blended learning to maximize these benefits. Therefore, the purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore teachers’ perceptions of ease of use and usefulness of blended learning, how they implement it, and challenges they have with implementation. The conceptual framework for this study is the technology acceptance model. Research questions involved teachers’ perceptions of ease of use and usefulness of blended learning, how they implement it, and challenges they have with implementation. I collected data by interviewing 12 participants via semi-structured telephone interviews. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a five-step analysis method for thematic analysis: compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding. The findings suggest that teachers perceive blended learning as easy to use and useful. Also, teachers use either the flipped classroom model or face-to-face driver model for blended learning implementation. Further, participants cited Internet access and teacher technology competencies as challenges preventing blended learning implementation, while support, one-to-one initiatives, and professional development allowed for successful implementation. The findings of this study have social change implications in high school classrooms. Both teachers and administrators will gain valuable knowledge to help them make decisions regarding blended learning implementation to break down barriers preventing blended learning in classroom instruction

Integrating Christian caring in nursing curriculum: One school’s experience

The link between caring and nursing has been evident since the days of Florence Nightingale. She referred to nursing as an act of charity or God\u27s work. Nursing within the Judea-Christian tradition was viewed as a mission, ministry or call from God to serve others. Those entering nursing fulfilled a commitment to God through service and care for others. Over time the focus in nursing shifted from the Christian perspective of being called to be a nurse to technical and physio­logical reasons for helping people. Virginia Henderson defined nursing as that service to an individual that helps him to attain or maintain a healthy state of mind or body.\u27\u27 In recent years the concept of caring has reemerged within nursing but from a different worldview. The theoretical basis for caring includes humanistic and Eastern philosophies.At the same time, the connection of caring in nursing with Christian beliefs has been diluted, ignored and often excluded. Change is the norm in the current dynamic health care envi­ronment. With change comes the challenge to redesign curricula to educate future nurses. As the curriculum of our school of nursing was reorganized, the faculty made a commitment to make our Christian heritage and values more explicit. We recognized the significance of working at a private, religiously affiliated university, where Christian educa­tion was a priority. Based on that commitment, we incorporated into the design of the nursing curriculum a Christian caring environment and Christian caring activities, which helped students to identify their personal beliefs and values, to recognize how Christian caring can be shown in nursing and to develop their own Christian caring philosophy

10 New γ Doradus and δ Scuti Stars

We present high-resolution spectroscopy and precision photometry of five new γ Doradus and five new δ Scuti variables. The five new γ Doradus variables substantially increase the number of confirmed stars of this class. All 10 stars fall in the spectral class range F0–F2, but they are cleanly separated into two groups by their luminosity and photometric periods. However, the period gap between the γ Doradus and δ Scuti stars is becoming very narrow since we confirm that HD 155154 is a γ Doradus star with the shortest periods reported to date (the shortest of its four periods is ∼0.312 days). We do not find any evidence in our sample for stars exhibiting both δ Scuti– and γ Doradus–type pulsations

Which comorbid conditions should we be analyzing as risk factors for healthcare-associated infections?

OBJECTIVETo determine which comorbid conditions are considered causally related to central-line associated bloodstream infection (CLABSI) and surgical-site infection (SSI) based on expert consensus.DESIGNUsing the Delphi method, we administered an iterative, 2-round survey to 9 infectious disease and infection control experts from the United States.METHODSBased on our selection of components from the Charlson and Elixhauser comorbidity indices, 35 different comorbid conditions were rated from 1 (not at all related) to 5 (strongly related) by each expert separately for CLABSI and SSI, based on perceived relatedness to the outcome. To assign expert consensus on causal relatedness for each comorbid condition, all 3 of the following criteria had to be met at the end of the second round: (1) a majority (&gt;50%) of experts rating the condition at 3 (somewhat related) or higher, (2) interquartile range (IQR)≤1, and (3) standard deviation (SD)≤1.RESULTSFrom round 1 to round 2, the IQR and SD, respectively, decreased for ratings of 21 of 35 (60%) and 33 of 35 (94%) comorbid conditions for CLABSI, and for 17 of 35 (49%) and 32 of 35 (91%) comorbid conditions for SSI, suggesting improvement in consensus among this group of experts. At the end of round 2, 13 of 35 (37%) and 17 of 35 (49%) comorbid conditions were perceived as causally related to CLABSI and SSI, respectively.CONCLUSIONSOur results have produced a list of comorbid conditions that should be analyzed as risk factors for and further explored for risk adjustment of CLABSI and SSI.Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol 2017;38:449–454</jats:sec

The Effect Of A Medical Decompression Protocol On The Use Of Antiemetics, Nasogastric Tube Usage And Diet Advance In Late Stage Cancer Patients With Functional Intestinal Obstruction

At the end of life, many patients suffer from a syndrome that simulates classic small bowel obstruction. The traditional approach to intestinal obstruction is relief of pressure in the gastrointestinal tract using mechanical methods such as naso-gastric tube insertion and suctioning. This relieves the distension of the hollow organs and thus the nausea.. Pharmacologic methods are also used in the care of these patients, however, there is debate as to which agents to use and when to use them. The Medical Decompression protocol is a non-invasive pharmacologic approach to this problem. It brings with it ease and economy of delivery, the ability to administer it in intravenous as well as oral form, and is a multi-agent protocol of tried and true drugs used at the end of life: 1/2 Metoclopramide, Dexamethasone, Diphenhydramine, and Pantoprazole Prior to initiating this intervention, patients and their families are educated and are aware that this intervention is most likely a temporary measure aimed at symptom relief, as well as an attempt to improve quality of life. Our sample contained 42 males and 62 females, with an average age of about 70 years. About 51% of participants received MD (n = 53). Results indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups related to days to progress diet. We propose that a pharmacologic method such as MD is strongly considered as first line treatments for the functional intestinal obstruction syndrome and indeed be considered as adjuncts to allow the removal of invasive mechanical interventions in the end of life patient

Examining the teacher identity-agency relationship through legitimate peripheral participation: A longitudinal investigation

This paper brings a unique, longitudinal perspective to the field of teacher identity by extending on Lave and Wenger’s notion of legitimate peripheral participation to theorise the relationship between teacher identity and agency in multiple and temporal practicum contexts. This study examined eight pre-service teachers in three teaching practicums over a three-year period. Findings reveal that each pre-service teacher became ‘identity brokers’ by employing agentic tools to affirm and maintain their identities within multiple practicum contexts. These agentic tools included demonstrating situated knowledge, codes of practice and establishing a system of relations with old-timers in each practicum school in order to gain legitimacy as a newcomer. In doing so, this paper demonstrates how legitimate peripheral participation offers a new way to theorise the complex and nuanced relationship between identity and agency in multiple and temporal contexts