Designing and Psychometric Evaluation of the Competency Inventory for Postgraduate Students of Intensive Care Nursing

Background: Today, the role of expert clinical nurses is highlighted because their presence is necessary for guaranteeing the quality of nursing care provided for the patients. However, there are no proper instruments for measuring the clinical competence of postgraduate students in intensive care nursing. Objectives: The present study aimed at development and psychometric evaluation of the clinical-competence inventory for postgraduate students of intensive care nursing. Patients and Methods: A methodological study was conducted at state nursing schools of Iran. The participants were postgraduate students of intensive care nursing, who were being trained at 16 nursing schools throughout Iran, during year 2014. After examining some relevant texts, the first draft of the inventory was designed with 60 items. In order to confirm its face and content validity, a panel of experts and students examined the inventory. The final draft, which contained 44 items, was distributed among postgraduate students of intensive care nursing, and 217 students answered the inventory. The construct validity was verified using exploratory factor analysis. The reliability of the inventory was verified using consistency tests. Results: Firstly an instrument with 60 items was developed. Next, the face and content validity of the instrument was assessed by 15 students and 11 experts. Overall, 16 items were removed through validity assessment and 44 items remained in the final draft. The content validity index of the final draft was 0.90. Moreover, the content validity ration of 44 items ranged between 0.75 and 1. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the inventory was 0.95 and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of the test-retest results was 0.96. To examine the construct validity of the final draft, it was administered for 217 postgraduate students of intensive care nursing and five factors, with Eigenvalues above one and loading level equal to or above 0.4, were extracted through exploratory factor analysis. Conclusions: The inventory developed in this study is a suitable index for evaluating the efficacy of postgraduate students in the field of intensive care nursing

Study of Lifestyle and Preventive Behaviors of Osteoporosis among Adolescents in Qazvin

Introduction: Numerous studies showed that lifestyle in the years of growth and adolescence is the most important factor in determining the risk of osteoporosis in later years of life. This study aimed to assess lifestyle and nutritional preventive behaviors of osteoporosis among teenagers in Qazvin in Iran. Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was performed within teenagers, in a population – based sample of 300 students collected via random cluster sampling. Data was collected through a self-administered questionnaire containing 15 questions (Questions items included risk factors related to osteoporosis, preventive behaviors of osteoporosis, and demographic factors). Using SPSS 16, the data were analyzed by Chi-square and Fisher's exact tests. Results: Findings showed that the majority of teenagers (71.3%) do not have regular physical activity. There were significant differences between physical activity patterns of male students and female students (P=0.001). Nutritional habit results showed that female students (66.7%) used foods (34.7%) containing vitamin D more than male students. The results showed that 29.3% of male students and 24.3% of female students didn’t use any calcium absorption increasing ways in the body. Conclusion: The study findings show that osteoporosis in Iranian teenagers appears to correlate with several known risk factors and unsuitable behaviors that were well described in the literature. It revealed that preventive educational strategies on osteoporosis are important in this population. So modifying lifestyle among teenagers seems essential in order to prevent osteoporosis in the futur

Formation of different microstructures on a polyethersulfone film following XeCl laser irradiation

Laser irradiation parameters, especially the laser fluence and the number of pulses are very important factors affecting microstructures formation and improvement of the surface characteristics in different medical, electronic and the other industrial applications. Information about the fluence domain and the number of pulses for the formation of the structures is very important and determines the desirable or unwanted effects of the laser irradiation on the surfaces regarding the desired applications. In this paper Polyethersulfone films were irradiated with a XeCl laser at fluences above the ablation threshold. The effects of the laser fluence and the number of pulses on the formation of different microstructures on the surface were investigate