No abstract available.
Risk Assessment*

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to test the validity of a modified clinical performance examination (CPX) for preclinical students in nursing. METHOD: 70 nursing students in their second semester of the junior year at C University participated in CPX. Scenarios and checklists were developed by our research team from September to October 2005. Six stations were organized. Evaluation included physical examination of a patient with lung cancer, education on usage of a metered dosage inhaler, and lobectomy postoperative care. Students were randomly assigned to a station. RESULT: There was a difference in the CPX scores according to stations. The agreement of scoring between trained faculty members and SPs was more than moderate (r=.647). The correlation between the CPX score and the average grade in the previous semester and between the CPX score and the average grade of a paper and pen test of the pulmonary system of adults was low (r=.276; r=.048). CONCLUSION: Traditional CPX is generally recommended, however, modified CPX is appropriate for preclinical students in the current Korean Nursing school setting if there are additional scoring systems to balance the testing level at each station.
Administration, Inhalation ; Adult ; Education, Nursing, Baccalaureate/*standards ; Educational Measurement ; Female ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms/nursing ; Male ; Medical History Taking ; Physical Examination ; Postoperative Care ; Reproducibility of Results ; Task Performance and Analysis

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of preclinical clinical performance examination (CPX) on nursing students' confidence in their nursing skills and critical thinking competence. METHODS: The design of this research was one-group pretest-posttest, and the participants were 112 nursing students. The preclinical CPX consisted of a clinical examination, patient-nurse relationship, oral test of related knowledge, written test of the nursing process, and debriefing using comprehensive scenarios based on real patient cases. The confidence of nursing skills consisted of an 8-item NRS and the critical thinking competence consisted of a 12-item 4-point scale developed by researchers and measured in both the pretest and posttest. The collected data were analyzed using paired t-tests, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation coefficients. RESULTS: The score for confidence in nursing skills (t=10.60, p<.001) and that for critical thinking competence (t=7.03, p<.001) increased significantly after preclinical CPX. CONCLUSION: This study showed that preclinical CPX was effective in improving nursing students' confidence in their nursing skills and critical thinking competence. Therefore, preclinical CPX is expected to be utilized in nursing practice education. Additional studies including those on control groups are recommended to compare differences between the preclinical CPX group and control group.
Education ; Humans ; Mental Competency* ; Nursing Process ; Nursing* ; Students, Nursing ; Thinking*

BACKGROUND: Various molecular methods such as polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and DNA hybridization have been introduced to diagnose the hepatitis B more accurately. Recently, Hybrid Capture Assay (HCA) was developed, which uses the signal amplification solution hybridization capture assay with chemiluminescent detector. So we evaluated the sensitivity and clinical utility of the HCA and PCRs for the detection of hepatitis B virus DNA (HBV DNA) and compared these results with serologic markers. METHODS: We analysed the 50 samples from the hepatitis B patients using enzyme immunoassay, HCA and nested PCRs with two different primer sets. The primers of PCR I and PCR II were targeted to pol and core region respectively. RESULTS: In 18 cases, HBV DNA were detected by HCA in which the positive rates by PCR I and PCR II were 55.6%, and 88.9%, respectively. And in 32 cases in which HBV DNA by HCA was negative, the positive rates by PCR I and PCR II were 6.2% and 31.3%, respectively. In 44 cases which were positive for HBsAg, the positive rates for HBV DNA were 38.6% by HCA, 27.3% by PCR I, and 56.8% by PCR II. In cases positive for HBeAg, the positive rates were 93.3% by HCA, 60.0% by PCR I and 80.0% by PCR II. In cases positive for anti-HBe and negative for HBeAg, the positive rates were 10.3% by HCA, 10.3% by PCR I, and 44.8% by PCR II. CONCLUSIONS: Both HCA and PCR compensated each other yet as to the accurate investigation of the viral replication in patients with hepatitis B and the sensitivity was better in HBV PCR with primers to core region than to pol region.
DNA ; Hepatitis B e Antigens ; Hepatitis B Surface Antigens ; Hepatitis B virus* ; Hepatitis B* ; Hepatitis* ; Humans ; Immunoenzyme Techniques ; Polymerase Chain Reaction*

PURPOSE: This study was done to determine the effect of nursing interventions on the knowledge of cervical cancer, and health beliefs, self efficacy and rate of rescreening compliance. METHOD: This was a nonequivalent control group pretest-posttest design. The subjects were 93 women who had experienced cervical cancer screening in S city and were randomly assigned to the experimental or control group. Intervention tools were a screening record pocket book, phone-coach. and watching a video(17mins). The data was collected from April to December, 2003 and analyzed using an chi-square-test. t-test and ANCOVA. RESULTS: The 1st hypothesis, "The Posttest knowledge score of the experimental group will be significantly higher than that of the control group" was supported (F=11.16, p= .001). The 2nd hypothesis, "The Posttest health belief score of the experimental group will be significantly higher than that of the control group" was not supported(F=3.38, p= .069). The 3rd hypothesis, "The Posttest self efficacy score of the experimental group will be significantly higher than that of the control group" was supported(F=4.36, p= .040). The 4th hypothesis, "The Rescreening compliance rate of the experimental group after the nursing intervention will be significantly higher than that of the control group" was supported(chi-square=3.45, p= .050). CONCLUSION: This nursing intervention was effective in increasing the knowledge of cervical cancer, and self efficacy percentage of rescreening compliance. Therefore I think this intervention can be used for promoting the rescreening compliance of women.
Compliance* ; Female ; Humans ; Mass Screening* ; Nursing* ; Self Efficacy* ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms*

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the evidence for the effectiveness of different isolation policies in reducing the incidence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection in hospital in-patients. METHODS: We prospectively evaluated the effectiveness of an isolation policy on transmission of MRSA in the 745-beds hospital. First period, all patients with MRSA (March - July 2000) were not isolated Second period, strict isolation policies were performed (August 2000 - January 2002). All patients with MRSA were isolated in separated room, hand hygiene using alcohol handrub, gowning and g1oving, apply of MRSA notice sticker, criteria in isolation remove, separated disinfection and wastement. Third period, semi strict isolation policies were performed (February 2002 - August 2005). Some patients with MRSA were isolated in separated room and others were admitted in general ward for bed shortage. Only some practices were performed in hand washing and separated disinfection in general ward. RESULTS: The rates of MRSA nosocomial infection per patients during 1st, 2nd, and 3rd surveillance were reported 0.56, 0.23, and 0.42 (P<0.05). Patient-days rate of MRSA nosocomial infection during 1st, 2nd, and 3rd surveillance were reported 0.62, 0.27, and 0.38 (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: With many different isolation policies, it was possible to reduce nosocomial infection of MRSA. In this study, strict isolation policies (2nd period) were the most effective practices in reducing MRSA infection.
Cross Infection ; Disinfection ; Hand Disinfection ; Hand Hygiene ; Humans ; Incidence ; Infection Control ; Methicillin Resistance* ; Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus* ; Patients' Rooms ; Prospective Studies

PURPOSE: Bisphosphonates are widely used for the management steroid-induced osteoporosis (SIO) in children. With the increasing use of bisphosphonates, there have been reports of abnormal radiological findings in the growing skeleton. Therefore, their use in pediatric patients remains controversial. The present study was conducted to evaluate the long-term follow-up radiographic features, particularly metaphyseal sclerotic lines, in children who receive pamidronate therapy for nephropathy. METHODS: Twenty-four children with nephropathy treated with oral calcium and pamidronate (mean duration, 9 months; dose, 100 mg daily), were evaluated retrospectively. All patients had SIO secondary to chronic glucocorticoid therapy for treating nephropathy. Long bone radiographic imaging was performed before treatment with pamidronate, and at follow-up, several years later. Physeal growth rates were estimated by measuring the distance that the sclerotic lines moved on the radiographs during the corresponding time intervals. RESULTS: The mean follow-up period was 138 months. Long bone radiographs showed well-defined sclerotic lines at the metaphyseal ends, progressively moving from the physeal plate to the diaphysis, in all patients. The mean rate of movement of the sclerotic line was 6.21 mm per year. In 12 patients, the lines disappeared. The mean rate of growth in height was 7.33 cm per year. CONCLUSIONS: Results of long-term follow-up suggest that the metaphyseal sclerotic lines associated with pamidronate treatment tend to disappear without affecting overall skeletal growth. Bisphosphonate treatment for SIO in children with nephropathy seems to be safe, although further studies in larger number of patients are needed.
Calcium ; Child* ; Diaphyses ; Diphosphonates ; Follow-Up Studies* ; Humans ; Osteoporosis ; Retrospective Studies ; Skeleton

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to develop a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) package, test its application and evaluate students' recognition of the effectiveness of PBL in nursing colleges. METHOD: Thirteen steps were used in the process developing the PBL package. After its application, the first questionnaire for self-evaluation and satisfaction with PBL class was given to 94 nursing students in December, 2005. To further evaluate the students' recognition of the effectiveness of PBL, a second questionnaire was given to 83 nursing students out of the 96 in May, 2007 after clinical practice. Data analysis was conducted using means with standard deviation. RESULTS: The results of students' self-evaluation showed high achievement in learning outcome and process using the PBL method. Also, they expressed satisfaction with the subject management, the lecturer and their peers after the PBL class. Students recognized that the PBL class had positive effectiveness in clinical practice and wanted more PBL classes and the inclusion of complex cases from well designed packages. CONCLUSION: PBL class could be considered as an opportunity to fortify student nurses' abilities to adjust to the real clinical situation.
Diagnostic Self Evaluation ; Humans ; Learning ; Nursing ; Problem-Based Learning ; Questionnaires ; Statistics as Topic ; Students, Nursing

No abstract available.
Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation* ; Fibrinogen*

No abstract available.
Craniocerebral Trauma* ; Follow-Up Studies* ; Head* ; Humans