Results of Nurse Case Management in Primary Heath Care: Bibliographic Review

Background: The new characteristics of today’s population, together with the presence of chronic diseases in the elderly, require a new approach to care, promoting coordination between different levels of care. In this sense, we find the figure of the nurse case manager (NCM) in primary health care mainly responsible for ensuring continuity of care in complex patients with chronic diseases. Objective: to describe the role of the NCM in care management, determining its effectiveness in addressing chronic disease (health outcomes and quality of life) and its efficiency in the health system. Methods: Bibliographic review of scientific evidence on case management applied to nursing. Between March and April 2020 a bibliographic search was carried out in the Dialnet, Scielo, Scopus and Pubmed databases. Inclusion criteria: articles written in the last 5 years, which analyze how this nursing rol influences the care and health of patients. Results: A total of 16 articles were selected. The NCM reduced the use of the emergency department, hospital admissions, readmissions, and the duration of these in the patients studied. Conclusion: The NCM is effective and efficient for both patients and health institutions, and a common practice model is needed that includes standardized protocols and evidence-based practices

Study of the Strengths and Weaknesses of Nursing Work Environments in Primary Care in Spain

Nursing work environments are defined as the characteristics of the workplace that promote or hinder the provision of professional care by nurses. Positive work environments lead to better health outcomes. Our study aims to identify the strengths and weaknesses of primary health care settings in Spain. Methods: Cross-sectional study carried out from 2018 to 2019. We used the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index and the TOP10 Questionnaire of Assessment of Environments in Primary Health Care for data collection. The associations between sociodemographic and professional variables were analyzed. Results: In total, 702 primary care nurses participated in the study. Responses were obtained from 14 out of the 17 Spanish Autonomous Communities. Nursing foundation for quality of care, management and leadership of head nurse and nurse-physician relationship were identified as strengths, whereas nurse participation in center affairs and adequate human resources to ensure quality of care were identified as weaknesses of the nursing work environment in primary health care. Older nurses and those educated to doctoral level were the most critical in the nursing work environments. Variables Age, Level of Education and Managerial Role showed a significant relation with global score in the questionnaire. Conclusion: Interventions by nurse managers in primary health care should focus on improving identified weaknesses to improve quality of care and health outcomes.Enfermerí

Local elections in Spain. The Personalization of Voting Behavior

Cuando los ciudadanos votan en elecciones municipales,¿tienen en cuenta solo factores a nivel nacional? O, porel contrario, ¿prestan también atención a elementos decarácter local? En este artículo sostenemos que la evaluación que hacen los ciudadanos de los candidatos ala alcaldía es un factor particularmente importante paraexplicar el sentido del voto en las elecciones locales enEspaña. Para verificar empíricamente la existencia deesta relación, analizamos las elecciones de 1999, 2007y 2011. Examinando una muestra relativamente heterogénea de municipios y gracias a las encuestas del Centrode Investigaciones Sociológicas, demostramos el efectode las evaluaciones de los candidatos a expensas de unpapel menos pronunciado de la ideología. La evidenciaaportada también apunta a que este patrón es más fuerteen municipios pequeños y para elecciones más recientes.When voters cast their ballot in local elections, are they only taking into account national factors? Or do they, to the contrary, also pay attention to local elements? In this article we argue that voters’ evaluations of candidates for mayor are particularly important to explain party choice in this type of subnational elections in Spain. To empirically verify the existence of this relationship, we focus on the 1999, 2007, and 2011 elections. By dwell-ing on a relatively heterogeneous sample of municipali-ties and working with surveys undertaken by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, we show the effect of candidates’ evaluations at the expense of a less pro-nounced role of ideology. The provided evidence also suggests that this pattern becomes stronger in small municipalities and more recent elections

The electoral consequences of corruption scandals in Spain

Previous studies of the electoral consequences of corruption in Spanish local elections (Jiménez Revista de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociológicas, 6(2):43– 76, 2007; Fernández-Vázquez and Rivero 2011, Consecuencias electorales de la corrupción, 2003–2007. Estudios de Progreso, Fundación Alternativas; Costas et al. European Journal of Political Economy: 28(4):469-484, 2012) have found that voters do not necessarily punish corrupt mayors. As has been pointed out in the comparative literature, the average loss of electoral support by corrupt incumbents is small and does not prevent their reelection most of the times (Jiménez and Caínzos 2006, How far and why do corruption scandals cost votes? In Garrard, J. and Newell, J. (eds.) Scandals in past and contemporary politics. Manchester: Manchester University Press). What remains unsolved, however, is the remarkable variability in this pattern. This article explores some of the micro-level variables that may mediate the effect of corruption scandal on the votes. We focus on three factors: ideological closeness to the incumbent party, political sophistication, and employment status. Our results provide only partial support for our hypotheses, suggesting that the effects of corruption are much more complex than what may seem at first sigh

Local elections in spain:A multilevel analysis of the individual and contextual determinants of voting

Desde la instauración de los primeros ayuntamientos democráticos en 1979, se han celebrado diez elecciones municipales en España. En los escasos estudios dedicados a ellas, el voto ha sido habitualmente explicado recurriendo a variables de ámbito nacional según el conocido modelo de las elecciones de segundo orden. En este trabajo examinaremos la validez de estos patrones de comportamiento cuando introducimos también factores explicativos de carácter local. Para comprobarlo, hemos estimado distintos modelos multinivel utilizando una ambiciosa base de datos que contiene variables individuales y contextuales para una muestra representativa de municipios españoles entre 1991 y 2011. Los resultados son sumamente interesantes: factores individuales como la ideología de los votantes e indicadores contextuales como la tasa de desempleo a nivel municipal inciden de manera significativa en la probabilidad de votar al partido del alcalde.Since the establishment of the first democratic local councils in 1979, ten municipal elections have taken place in Spain. In the few studies devoted to them, voting has habitually been explained by using national variables and following the wellknown model of second-order elections. In this paper we examine the validity of these conclusions by also considering local factors. We have estimated several hierarchical models using an ambitious datasetwhich includes both individual and contextual variables for a representative sample of Spanish municipalities between 1991 and 2011. Our empirical results are particularly interesting, with individual factors such as voters’ ideology and contextual indicators such as the unemployment rate at the municipal level having a significant impact on the probability of voting for the incumbent mayor’s party

Study of the Strengths and Weaknesses of Nursing Work Environments in Primary Care in Spain

Background: Nursing work environments are defined as the characteristics of the workplace that promote or hinder the provision of professional care by nurses. Positive work environments lead to better health outcomes. Our study aims to identify the strengths and weaknesses of primary health care settings in Spain. Methods: Cross-sectional study carried out from 2018 to 2019. We used the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index and the TOP10 Questionnaire of Assessment of Environments in Primary Health Care for data collection. The associations between sociodemographic and professional variables were analyzed. Results: In total, 702 primary care nurses participated in the study. Responses were obtained from 14 out of the 17 Spanish Autonomous Communities. Nursing foundation for quality of care, management and leadership of head nurse and nurse–physician relationship were identified as strengths, whereas nurse participation in center affairs and adequate human resources to ensure quality of care were identified as weaknesses of the nursing work environment in primary health care. Older nurses and those educated to doctoral level were the most critical in the nursing work environments. Variables Age, Level of Education and Managerial Role showed a significant relation with global score in the questionnaire. Conclusion: Interventions by nurse managers in primary health care should focus on improving identified weaknesses to improve quality of care and health outcomes

RESEARCH ARTICLE - Catalytical properties of N-glycosylated Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus levansucrase produced in yeast

The influence of N-glycosylation on the kinetic and catalytical properties of a bacterial fructosyltransferase (LsdA) produced in Pichia pastoris was studied. The glycosylated enzyme behaved similarly to non-glycosylated LsdA when substrate specificity, fructo-oligosaccharide (FOS) production, sucrose hydrolysis or levan formation reactions were carried out under different experimental conditions. The kinetic parameters for native or yeast-expressed LsdA determined at 60ºC, condition for the highest hydrolytic activity, followed a conventional Michaelis-Menten kinetics. Synthase activity of this levansucrase increased in water-restricted environments by addition of salt or organic solvent to the reaction mixtures