Nursing

Introduction-Aim: The concept of nursing care in learning disability community settings has not been
investigated in Greece. The aim of this paper is to investigate how nurses working in learning disability
community settings perceive the meaning of nursing care.
Material and Methods: The sample consisted of 100 nurses and nursing assistants working in a social care
hospice. Participants were asked to answer questions about socio- demographic characteristics of the sample and
fill in a questionnaire of care (GR–NDI–24), the “Job-Communication-Satisfaction-Importance” (JCSI)
questionnaire and the altruism scale of Ahmed and Jackson. The data analysis was realized with statistical
methods of descriptive and inductive statistics. The analysis was made with the use of SPSS (version 19).
Results: The majority of the sample was women (78%). The majority of participants were married (66 %), DE
graduates (66%) without postgraduate studies (96.7%). The mean age of respondents was 36.98±6.70 years. On
the scales of caring and altruism, the mean values were 40.89±15.87 and 28.12±4.16 respectively. Very or fully
satisfied with his work was 72% of the sample. The scope of work emerges as the most important factor
influencing job satisfaction. The wages and working conditions (73% and 40% respectively) are the parameters
of work which gathers the most dissatisfaction, while the salary is emerging as the most important parameter, the
improvement of which would provide the highest satisfaction. Marginally statistically significant difference was
observed in the range between TE graduates (d=40) and those of the DE grade (d=37), p=0.053. No statistically
significant differences were observed in relation to other working and demographic characteristics (p>0.05).
Greater care importance was associated with greater job satisfaction (p<0.01), while the latter was associated
with high levels of altruism (p<0.05).
Conclusion: The scope of work provides high satisfaction to nurses working in social care hospices, while the
salary is not satisfactory. Nurses’ aides appeared highly sensitive to care issues. A multidimensional approach to
the materiality of care and job satisfaction in future research will allow to further highlight all the aspects
affecting job satisfaction and performance of nurses. This will identify critical parameters of nursing care in
healthcare centers for the chronically ill.

The concept of care is a fundamental issue in nursing science. Therefore the development and the use of tools for assessing care is an imperative for the nursing profession. The NDI-35 questionnaire is one such tool for assessing the nursing care.

Introduction: The international financial situation in combination with an aging population and the appropriation of health services imposes the management of hospital services as a necessity for the survival of hospitals. Aim: To examine the perceptions of 450 upper administrative hospital executives (Nursing, Medicine and Administrative services) in the wider region of Attica, on marketing, communication, and public relations in health-care. Population study: Four hundred and fifty (450) higher health executives from the three basic fields of services in health institutions (medical, nursing, administration) constituted the total sample of the research. These people are employed at 9 of the 36 hospitals in the 3 Health Regions of Attica (H.Re).

Nurses are aware of the rationale for hand hygiene procedures. Nurses represent a large working group that performs the greatest amount of direct patient care in Health Services. Hand hygiene is one of the most effective measures to prevent hospital acquired infections. Aim: to point out the importance of nurses' hand hygiene Method: a review of articles with key words "hand, hygiene, hand, contamination, nurse, and guideline". Results: Infectious diseases are a particular risk to the very young, the elderly, those with a preexisting disease, and people with a compromised immune system. Nurses washing their hands not only prevent them from getting sick, but it also reduces the risk of infecting others.

Abstract: Occupational burnout is defined as a physical and mental exhaustion syndrome and is the result of chronic stress.
Nurses are exposed to the physical and emotional effects of the experience of caring for a dying patient. Aim of this study was to investigate nurses’ burnout caring patients at their end of their life. Material and Method: The sample of the research
constituted of 110 nursing professionals who are caring patients facing death. Data were obtained using Death Attitude
Profile-Revised (DAP-R) and Maslach’s burnout inventory (MBI). Results: The factors that appeared to shape the nurses
attitudes towards death were age, marital status, education level, position in the workplace, department at work and
professional experience. Conclusions: Fear of death and death avoidance were found to correlate statistically significant with
the subscale depersonalization and with emotional exhaustion.
Keywords: Death Attitude, Burnout, Nursing Personnel

Background: Salivary cortisol is a useful biomarker in stress research, as a valid measure for
HPA axis activity, whose deregulation is one of the ways that psychosocial risk factors at work,
result to the creation of illness. 
Aim: The aim of this review was to summarize current literature of salivary cortisol as measures of
work stress in healthy workers, so as to investigate the association between work stress and
cortisol secretion as well as to identify specific work characteristics, that affect the cortisol
secretion.
Methods: We identified articles through PubMed using search terms related to salivary cortisol,
HPA axis, work stress.
Results: Many studies have shown that altered level of cortisol, appears to be associated with
work related stress factors. Work shift, working hours, the nature of work, organizational
characteristic of work (effort reward imbalance, high demand-low control, over-commitment,
conflicts between home and work demands, and workload) as well as bulling at work, sociodemographic characteristics, financial strain, physical risk factors and social support at work are
found to affect Cortisol levels. Though the relationship between the cortisol secretion and some of
the above work stressors was found to be contradictory.
Discussion: From the present study it is obvious that the researches present an inconsistency
regarding the impact of work stressors on cortisol levels.
It has been identified that increased cortisol levels in populations reporting increased distress
couldn’t replicate this association. Among the reasons identified to be behind these inconsistent
findings are the differences in the prevalence of potential confounders, differences in analytical
approach and the duration of stressful stimulus.
Conclusion: The detailed knowledge about factors that play pivotal role in measures of the cortisol
secretion is very important, as the biomarkers have been demonstrated that can characterize and
quantify the biological impact of psychological stress. Targeted prevention policy and evidence
based interventions in workplace might include the identification of sources of occupational stress
and this is the first that can affect cortisol secretion.

Aim: The purpose of this study was to identify and measure managerial competencies, skills and knowledge necessary for
a competent Operating Room (OR) nurse manager so to provide quality care.
Methods: The Nurse Manager Questionnaire was used in General and Army Hospitals with at least 5 operating suites. 153
Operating Room nurses and Operating Room nurse managers rated the 53 skills of the Questionnaire depending on how
essential those skills are for OR nurse manager (RR=81%). The 53 skills were separated in two columns one for
knowledge and understanding and one for ability to implement and/or use. Reliability of the questionnaire was Cronbach
(a) = 0.987.
Results: The decision-making, ethical principles and effective communication were identified as the most necessary
competencies for OR nurse manager when in contrast financial competencies were identified as the least necessary. The
nurse’s educational preparation effected technical, human and leadership competencies in proportional way (p≤0.05)
when nurse’s age seemed to affect inversely leadership (p≤0.027) and financial competencies (p≤0.034).
Conclusions: As the Operating Room is an extremely stressful place, staffed with qualified personnel with multiple and
even conflicting interests, OR nurse manager must be equipped with multiple competencies such as technical and human,
in order to be able to promote safety and quality of perioperative nursing care to the patient.

While medical ethics place a high value on providing truthful information to patients, disclosure practices are far from being the norm in many countries. Transmitting bad news still remains a big problem that health care professionals face in their every day clinical practice.
Through the review of relevant literature, an attempt to examine the trends in this issue worldwide will be made.
Various electronic databases were searched by the authors and through systematic selection 51 scientific articles were identified that this literature review is based on.
There are many parameters that lead to the concealment of truth. Factors related to doctors, patients and their close environment, still maintain a strong resistance against disclosure of diagnosis and prognosis in terminally ill patients, while cultural influences lead to different approaches in various countries. Withholding the truth is mainly based in the fear of causing despair to patients. However, fostering a spurious hope, hides the danger of its' total loss, while it can disturb patient-doctor relationship.

Aim: The purpose of this research is to investigate the patient's satisfaction (patient's satisfaction) with medical services provided in Outpatients' Departments of a Greek Anti-Cancer Hospital in morning and afternoon clinics. The assessment of patients and identification of factors that contribute to their satisfaction will highlight the organizational and operational problems of outpatient department and assist in finding solutions to upgrade the quality of services provided.
Material and Methodology: For the collection of data, a questionnaire with closed answers in a five-point scale 'Likert' scale was used. The questions were related to demographics, social data users, and the overall service process in the outpatient Hospital. The sample consisted of 100 patients (RR: 76%) who visited the outpatient clinic in the morning or afternoon over a month long period of time. Results: The results of our research showed that cancer patients reported a high satisfaction rate with the health services provided in outpatient department of Anti-Cancer Hospital. The highest reported levels of satisfaction were related to working with medical staff because of the special relationship of trust that patients develop with their physician. Some problems were noted during the morning shift by patients. Patients reported frustration over long waiting times to get an appointment, last minute appointments, lack of flexibility when making appointments and long waiting times before being examined by a doctor. No statistically significant relationship was found between overall satisfaction with demographics' and other factors, although the grading services seem to be affected by the health status of patients, education and sex.
Conclusion: The problems that were identified leading to less patient satisfaction were the long waiting periods to get an appointment, last minute appointments, non-flexibility in making appointments and long waiting times to be examined by the doctor. Administration should increase its efforts to upgrade the quality of health care provided to oncology patients by taking all the necessary measures.

Introduction-Aim: The concept of nursing care in learning disability community settings has not been
investigated in Greece. The aim of this paper is to investigate how nurses working in learning disability
community settings perceive the meaning of nursing care.
Material and Methods: The sample consisted of 100 nurses and nursing assistants working in a social care
hospice. Participants were asked to answer questions about socio- demographic characteristics of the sample and
fill in a questionnaire of care (GR–NDI–24), the “Job-Communication-Satisfaction-Importance” (JCSI)
questionnaire and the altruism scale of Ahmed and Jackson. The data analysis was realized with statistical
methods of descriptive and inductive statistics. The analysis was made with the use of SPSS (version 19).
Results: The majority of the sample was women (78%). The majority of participants were married (66 %), DE
graduates (66%) without postgraduate studies (96.7%). The mean age of respondents was 36.98±6.70 years. On
the scales of caring and altruism, the mean values were 40.89±15.87 and 28.12±4.16 respectively. Very or fully
satisfied with his work was 72% of the sample. The scope of work emerges as the most important factor
influencing job satisfaction. The wages and working conditions (73% and 40% respectively) are the parameters
of work which gathers the most dissatisfaction, while the salary is emerging as the most important parameter, the
improvement of which would provide the highest satisfaction. Marginally statistically significant difference was
observed in the range between TE graduates (d=40) and those of the DE grade (d=37), p=0.053. No statistically
significant differences were observed in relation to other working and demographic characteristics (p>0.05).
Greater care importance was associated with greater job satisfaction (p<0.01), while the latter was associated
with high levels of altruism (p<0.05).
Conclusion: The scope of work provides high satisfaction to nurses working in social care hospices, while the
salary is not satisfactory. Nurses’ aides appeared highly sensitive to care issues. A multidimensional approach to
the materiality of care and job satisfaction in future research will allow to further highlight all the aspects
affecting job satisfaction and performance of nurses. This will identify critical parameters of nursing care in
healthcare centers for the chronically ill.

The concept of care is a fundamental issue in nursing science. Therefore the development and the use of tools for assessing care is an imperative for the nursing profession. The NDI-35 questionnaire is one such tool for assessing the nursing care.

PURPOSE: Exploring the Ecological Behavior of Nursing Staff in Dialysis Units and possible correlation with demographic or other factors. MATERIAL AND METHOD: This survey involved 90 Greek nurses who were given an overall anonymous questionnaire. The survey was conducted in hospitals in the Region of Peloponnese and Athens. The statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS statistical package (SPSS Inc., 2003, Chicago, USA). RESULTS: In reference to the greatest reduction potential, 35.2% said that the volume of infectious waste has greater potential for reduction, 31.8% answered that electricity consumption has greater potential, 20.5% water consumption and 12.5% of the consumption of natural gas or oil. About how to obtain greater environmental awareness, 37.1% can influence their colleagues by using guidelines, 23.6% with relative stimulation, 20.2% with educational lectures, 10.1% using poster and 6.7% by viewing educational videos. CONCLUSIONS: The Nursing Staff Dialysis Un...