Association between perceived social support and occupational burnout in Greek nurses: A preliminary study

Purpose: To examine the relationship between perceived social support and burnout among nurses. Materials and methods: The participants of this study were 42 Greek nurses of a general hospital which were randomly selected. Data was collected using the Greek version of Maslach’s Burnout Inventory for burnout assessment and the Greek version of ‘The Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support’ for the assessment of participants’ levels of perceived social support. A self-administered questionnaire with questions about socio-demographic and work-related characteristics was used. Descriptive statistics and Spearman’s rho correlation coefficient analysis were conducted. Results: The results showed a negative association between emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and perceived social support, especially from friends. Social support from significant others found to have the highest impact while family support found to have the least impact in nurses’ social support. Conclusions: Findings could be applied to the assessment of burnout in Greek nurses and to future prevention of burnout through the enhancement of perceived social support

The Mediterranean Island Wetlands (MedIsWet) inventory: strengths and shortfalls of the currently available floristic data

MedIsWet (Conservation of the island wetlands of the Mediterranean Basin) is a MAVA funded project which aims at investigating all seasonal or permanent island wetlands both natural and artificial, with a minimum extent of 0.1 hectares. More than 16,000 wetlands from almost all the Mediterranean, including islands from France, Italy, Malta, Croatia, Cyprus, Tunisia, Turkey, Greece and Spain were mapped. Over 2,500 of them were inventoried in the field and more than 500 scientific contributions catalogued. In total, more than 35,000 plant occurrences were uploaded, in a standardised and comparable way, on the national open-source web portals. These can be related to the recorded threats, uses and other spatially retrievable information. Here, we show strengths and shortfalls of the already available information about the floristic records. Although further improvements are needed, we discuss how these data can be used for research and policy actions and to develop conservation projects

Medication adherence among diabetic and hypertensive patients in Al-Qassim region of Saudi Arabia

Non-adherence to medication is often an unrecognized risk factor that contributes to failure of the therapeutic plan. The purpose of the study was to identify factors related to high, medium and low medication adherence among adult Saudi patients with hypertension and diabetes mellitus. This study is designed as a descriptive cross sectional survey and was conducted in three tertiary care hospitals of Al-Qassim province of Saudi Arabia. The data was collected using the 8-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS-8) and analyzed by SPSS. Three levels of adherence were considered based on the following scores: 0 to <6 (low); 6 to <8 (medium); 8 (high). Of the 396 patients interviewed, 52% reported low adherence to prescribed medication. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted. Gender, age, literacy level, duration of illness and type of chronic disease were negatively associated with medication adherence. The study shows very high proportion of low and medium adherence on long term medication, which may be responsible for the failure of achieving therapeutic outcome. Further investigation is required to evaluate the applicability of MMAS-8 as a tool of measuring medication adherence among Saudi patients with chronic diseases. Adherence enhancing strategies should also be evaluated in separate patients group

Preventing maritime transport of pathogens: The remarkable antimicrobial properties of silver-supported catalysts for ship ballast water disinfection

Ship ballast water (SBW) antimicrobial treatment is considered as a priority issue for the shipping industry. The present work investigates the possibility of utilizing antimicrobial catalysis as an effective method for the treatment of SBW. Taking into account the well-known antimicrobial properties of ionic silver (Ag+), five silver-supported catalysts (Ag/gamma-Al2O3) with various loadings (0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, and 1 wt%) were prepared and examined for the antimicrobial treatment of SBW. The bactericidal activity of the aforementioned catalysts was investigated towards the inhibition of Escherichia coli (Gram-negative) and Escherichia faecalis (Gram-positive) bacteria. Catalytic experiments were conducted in a three-phase continuous flow stirred tank reactor, used in a semi-batch mode. It was found that using the catalyst with the lowest metal loading, the inhibition of E. coli reached 95.8% after 30 minutes of treatment of an E. coli bacterial solution, while the inhibition obtained for E. faecalis was 76.2% after 60 minutes of treatment of an E. faecalis bacterial solution. Even better results (100% inhibition after 5 min of reaction) were obtained using the catalysts with higher Ag loadings. The results of the present work indicate that the prepared monometallic catalysts exert their antimicrobial activity within a short period of time, revealing, for the first time ever, that the field of antimicrobial heterogeneous catalysis using deposited ionic silver on a solid support may prove decisive for the disinfection of SBW

Film clips smoking behavior and nicotine craving: the interrelationship between stress, smoking cues and craving

Αn abundance of research has demonstrated that substance addicted individuals, when they are exposed to a substance related stimulus, show a positive correlation between physiological measurements, such as an increase in heart rate and sweating, and behavioral reactions, that include craving and substance use or consumption. Films depicting smoking behavior are regarded as cues to induce smoking behavior. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of smoking behavior portrayed in movies on actual craving experienced by smokers who watch on screen actors consume tobacco products. In addition, the effects of receiving orally administered nicotine (chewing gum), a regular chewing gum or no additional intervention were examined. In particular, the study aimed to investigate how these factors impact nicotine craving as well as the heart rate and sweating. The majority of the participants were University of Bedfordshire students and staff. Thirty smokers (12 males and 18 females) having received a nicotine gum, a regular chewing gum or no gum, were exposed to a digital video clip showing actors smoking. The participants chose the type of chewing gum they wanted. Heart rate (HR) and galvanic skin response (GSR) were measured during the course of the experiment. Prior to and after watching the movie clip participants completed the Brief Questionnaire of Smoking Urges (QSU-Brief) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). According to the results, the craving was increased when compared to the baseline score (t=-3.76, p<0.001). Additionally, a correlation was found between the baseline level of craving and perceived stress before and after the movie (r=0.39). Nicotine chewing gum was found to have a significant impact on participants' heart rate (p<0.05) but not on GSR. A significant difference was found in participants in the normal chewing gum condition reporting higher levels of craving than the other two groups (p<0.05). Age was found to positively related to post-measures of nicotine craving which was found to be higher for young respondents (r=-0.47, p<0.01). The data further show that the depiction of smoking behavior in the media is likely to have a significant impact on smoking craving, smoking behavior and nicotine consumption. The current study confirms and replicates some of the previous findings within the field of smoking behavior and nicotine craving such as high susceptibility of younger adults to media influence

The new concept of antimicrobial catalysis: disinfection of ships ballast water

The present paper introduces the new concept of antimicrobial catalysis towards the disinfection/treatment of ships ballast water (SBW), which is considered as a priority issue for the shipping industry. Taking into account the well-known antimicrobial properties of ionic silver (Ag+), five silver supported catalysts (Ag/γ-Al2O3) with various loadings (0.05 wt%, 0.1 wt%, 0.2 wt%, 0.5 wt%, and 1 wt%) were prepared and examined for the antimicrobial treatment of ships ballast water. The bactericidal activity of the aforementioned catalysts was investigated towards the inhibition of E. coli and E. faecalis bacteria. Catalytic experiments were conducted in a three-phase continuous flow stirred tank reactor, used in a semibatch mode. It was found that using the catalyst with the lowest metal loading, the inhibition of E. coli reached 95.8% after 90 min of treatment of an E. coli bacteria containing solution, while the inhibition obtained for E. faecalis was 76.2% after 60 min of treatment of an E. faecalis bacterial solution. The results of the present work indicate that the prepared monometallic catalysts exert their antimicrobial activity within a short period of time, revealing, for the first time ever, that the field of antimicrobial heterogeneous catalysis using deposited ionic silver on a solid support may prove decisive for the disinfection of SBW

Burnout syndrome impacts on quality of life in nursing professionals: The contribution of perceived social support

Purpose: To examine the impacts of burnout that has in health-related quality of life (QOL) in nursing staff in Greece. The association of social support with burnout and QOL is also investigated. Materials and methods: Individuals working in Mental and General Hospitals in the broader area of Athens participated in this study (N.139). The measurement tools include a) the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), b) the SF-36 Health Survey and c. the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. Burnout and QOL are expected to be related to the evaluation of social environment. Results: The results indicated the impacts that burnout has on quality of life and the positive effect of social support for nursing professionals in the levels of burnout. Conclusions: There is an association between burnout, quality of life and social support. Social support and socio-demographic factors appear to affect the levels of burnout to Psychiatric and General Hospital