A competency model for nurse executives

[EN] BackgroundNurses capable of adequately developing their competencies in the management field are essential for the sustainability of health-care organizations. Such competencies should be included in a model of specific competencies.AimThe aim of this research is to propose a competency model for nurse executives.MethodsThe Delphi method was applied to reach a consensus on the required competencies, and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was applied to determine the construct validity and reduce the data set's dimensionality. Consensus was defined based on at least 80% of the experts agreeing with the proposed competencies. For each competency, the development levels were beginner, advanced beginner, competent, highly competent and expert.ResultsFrom among the 51 competencies that were identified to define a model for nurse executives, decision-making, leadership and communication stood out. The PCA indicated the structural validity of the proposed model by saturation of the principal components (Cronbach's α > 0.631).ConclusionNurses wishing to develop their professional careers as nurse executives must first develop the competencies shown in the proposed model. Nurse executives should follow the educational programmes specified in this study, to adapt their knowledge to this role's requirements.S

Safety Climate Assessment in Operating Room Nurses Through Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ)

urgical safety is a global public health concern. The attitudes and perceptions of the surgical team regarding to the patient safety are associated to the safety climate and the prevalence of adverse events. Objective: To describe the safety climate according to sociodemographic characteristics and work professional conditions of operating room nurses from three Hospitals in Canary Islands, Spain. Method: This work presents a multicentre cross-sectional study. Data collection was obtained by means of The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire (SAQ), a self-completed questionnaire translated to the Spanish. A convenience sample with voluntary participation was selected. The safety climate was determined through six factors: Teamwork climate, Safety climate, Job satisfaction, Perception of the Unit and Hospital Management, Working conditions and Stress recognition. Results: The SAQ domains show variability in relation to sociodemographic characteristics and work professional conditions. Perception of the management and Working conditions are the domains lower valued in every sociodemographic characteristics studied. The size of the hospitals and Years of professional experience showed statistical differences in several domains. Conclusions: The age, years of profession, years of experience and type of hospital present strong relationship among patient safety perception.S

Enhancement of rotifer (Brachionus plicatilis) growth by using terrestrial lactic acid bacteria

17 páginas, 5 tablas, 3 figurasOne of the pathways for the entry of bacteria, both pathogenic and probiotic, into the larvae of fish hatcheries is via live prey. As a preventive measure against infections, live prey may be cultured, supplementing the food with probiotics. Some lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have been successfully used in the larviculture. In this study, the nutritional effect of seven terrestrial LAB has been studied regarding the growth of the rotifer Brachionus plicatilis. The cultures were carried out without partial renewal of the culture medium, feeding the rotifers on baker’s yeast and adding some of the species of bacteria. In all cases, the addition of the bacteria increased both the specific maximum growth rate and the maximum density obtainable in the cultures. However, the best results were obtained with the addition of Lactococcus casei ssp. casei, Pediococcus acidilactici, or Lactobacillus lactis spp lactis. The rates of growth obtained with the individual or joint addition of these three bacteria were 8–13 times greater than those obtained with the control cultures after 4–5 days’ culture. In this study, a series of kinetic models has been applied (logistic modified— Gompertz, logistic–logistic, and generalised logistic) which describes the experimental data, obtaining a set of parameters of biological significance which facilitate the optimisation of the use of these bacterial strains in the mass production of rotifers.Peer reviewe

Multi-center study of noise in patients from hospitals in Spain: A questionnaire survey

pp. 83-85To identify the most annoying noises in the hospital environment. One hundred and ninety-three patients took part in the study. A questionnaire collected the perceptions of patients from four hospitals in Spain, with three distinct units. The most annoying noises were the repetitive ones and the most unbearable source was the people who talk loudly. The daily hours were the noisiest and the most annoying, especially when patients wanted to rest and indicated that noise was annoying for them to get to sleep. Our results demonstrate how sensitive patients are toward noise in Spain. We also suggest some strategies to reduce the noise and the harmful physiological effects of increased sound levels in order to improve the quality of life in a healthcare environment.S

La red social del adolescente: la influencia de la amistad en el desarrollo de hábitos obesogénicos

This aim of this article is to demonstrate the importance of social networks in the obese adolescent's environment. This study emerged in response to the paucity of information encountered in the literature as regards whether adolescents eat better or worse and/or performs more or less physical exercisedepending on their friendship networks. We performed a literature search at the University of León library which focused on obesity and an analysis of young people's social networks, exploring databases such as the Web of Knowledge (WOK), SciELO and Scopus, among others. Articles and other documents of interest were identified using journals from the disciplines of Sociology and the Health Sciences. After the most relevant texts had been read in full, the following results were obtained: (1) relationships influence adolescents' habits, (2) the quality and quantity of food they consume can depend on the type of network to which they belong, and (3) the amount of physical exercise that adolescents do can be influenced by their best friends, by the wider group to which they belong and even by friends of friends. The foregoing suggests that the study of adolescents' social networks could be a useful tool for identifying behaviour patterns; it is therefore applicable to health and public health programmes and would contribute to the sustainability of the systemEl presente artículo pretende justificar la relevancia de las relaciones sociales en el entorno del adolescente obeso. La motivación por este enfoque surgió debido al vacío que se ha encontrado en estudios que expliquen si los adolescentes comen mejor o peor y/o realizan más o menos ejercicio físico dependiendo de su red de amigos. Se realizó una búsqueda bibliográfica centrada en la obesidad y el análisis de las redes sociales de los jóvenes a través de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de León, en diferentes bases de datos tales como Web of Knowledge (WOK), Scielo, Scopus, entre otras. Se obtuvieron artículos y otros documentos de interés utilizando revistas pertenecientes a las disciplinas de la Sociología y de las Ciencias de la Salud. Tras realizar la lectura de los textos más relevantes se pudo obtener los siguientes resultados: (1) las relaciones influyen en los hábitos de los adolescentes, (2) la calidad y la cantidad de comida puede depender del tipo de red que le rodea, y (3) el nivel de ejercicio físico que tiene un individuo se puede ver influenciado por sus mejores amigos, por el grupo en general que le rodea e incluso por los amigos de sus amigos. De todo ello se deriva, que el estudio de la red social del individuo puede ser una herramienta útil a la hora de visualizar los patrones de comportamiento, y por tanto, aplicable a los programas de salud y salud pública contribuyendo, de esta forma, a la sostenibilidad del sistema

Social support and mental health in maternity: Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic

[EN] Background: Motherhood involves a process of adaptation and the perception of social support influences mental health, breastfeeding or newborn care among others. The COVID-19 pandemic has generated a distancing from family, friends and health professionals. Methods: Quantitative, descriptive, cross-sectional study. The present study aims to describe and analyze the social support and mental health of mothers during this period. Methods: The sample were 179 women with children older than 6 months. The questionnaires used were the DUKE-UNC-11 and GHQ-12. Data analysis was carried out with Spearman's Rho and Mann Whitney U test. Results: 75.8% of the sample perceived normal social support during the pandemic. Within the dimensions of social support, women reported perceiving satisfactory confidential support, while affective support was perceived as low. Correlational analysis reported a significant relationship between mental health, confidential support and affective support. Group comparison noted greater confidential support in primiparous. Conclusions: The sample is sensitive to changes originated by COVID-19 constraints influencing perceived social support and mental health. Affective and confidential support as well as the involvement of health professionals and the environment are fundamental for mental health during the first year of maternity. Relevance to clinical practice: Mothers' mental health is sensitive and vulnerable to social changes, in this case, those that occurred as a consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak.S

Nurse managers’ competencies: A scoping review

.Aim : To describe and synthesize scientific literature on nurse managers’ competencies. Background : The key strategy for the success of health organisations currently re-sides in the capacity of the nurse manager to develop advanced competencies in management. However, there is a lack of systematic reviews that synthesize knowl-edge about nurse managers’ competencies. Evaluation : A scoping review was conducted using electronic databases including Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. Key issues : After the first analysis, 392 competencies were observed from 76 stud-ies. Finally, 53 competencies were grouped according to their characteristics. The two most- cited competencies were communication and finance. Conclusions : Knowing the competencies required by nurse managers can help or-ganisations create strategies to develop competent managers. In addition, from the results we can infer what might be the core competencies, since 22 main competen-cies from the total number were identified. Implications for Nursing Management : The competencies identified constitute the body of knowledge necessary for nurse managers. In addition, it is possible to gener-ate a pathway for learning and professional development for nurses before they work at the microlevel of management. The starting point for this pathway could be the 22 core competencies.S

Networks and Emotions in Cooperative Work: A Quasi-Experimental Study in University Nursing and Computer Engineering Students

University students establish networks that impact on their behavior. Social Network Analysis (SNA) allows us to analyze the reticular structures formed and find patterns of interaction between university students. The main objective of this study was to observe the impact of interdisciplinary collaborative work between nursing and computer engineering students on the collaboration and friendship networks, emotions and performance of the participants. It is a quasi-experimental descriptive study with pre- and post-intervention measurements. The contact networks analyzed showed an increase in density in the post-intervention period. The most central people in the network corresponded with those who considered positive emotions most in their academic environment, while the less central people coincided with those who highlighted negative emotions. Academic performance was only significantly associated in the collaboration network, between this and OutdegreeN. This study shows the impact of interdisciplinary activities on teaching methodologies and the repercussions of emotions on curricular activity.S

The consumption of alcohol by adolescent schoolchildren: Differences in the triadic relationship pattern between rural and urban environments

Objective Excessivealcoholconsumptioninadolescentsisoneofthemostsignificantpublichealth problemscurrentlyfacingsociety.Socialandgeographicalcontextscontributetothedevelopmentofalcohol-relatedbehaviorinadolescents.Theaimofthisresearchistoanalyze thesocialpatternrelatedtoalcoholconsumptioninadolescentsbasedontheirgeographical environment. Methodology Wedesignedadescriptivecross-sectionalstudybasedonsocialnetworkanalysis. Werecruited196highschoolstudentsbetween16and18yearsofagetoparticipate inthestudy.Themethodologyappliedwassocialnetworkanalysisbymeansoftransitivityandhomophilysocial triads.ThedatawereanalyzedusingSTATAstatistical software. Resultsandconclusions Atotalof58.48%ofruraladolescentsconsumedalcoholcomparedto49.52%ofurbanadolescents.Theseresultsdemonstratethatadolescentswholiveinruralareasexhibita greaterriskofdrinkingalcoholthanthosewholiveinurbanareas.Thepresenceoftransitive triadsincreasestheprobabilityofsharingsociodemographicattributesinsuchawaythatit maybeconsideredoneofthecausesofhomophily,contributingtoadolescentstaking greaterrisks,suchasconsumingalcohol.S

Early neglect associated to prefrontal structural disconnectivity in schizophrenia

[ES] Negligencia y descuido temprano asociado a la desconexión estructural prefrontal en la esquizofrenia