This study sought to analyze the conditions of nurses in acute care hospitals struggling with mental health issues. We administered a questionnaire survey to 204 nurses and analyzed 163 valid responses. A total of 81 conditions related to the working environment and 35 conditions related to interpersonal relations were identified. Conditions related to the working environment included working overtime beyond regular workhours, feelings of stress due to assignments, frequency of night shifts, stress in new environments, mistakes made on the job, worries about assigned positions, worries about work procedures, inability to take public and paid holidays, balance between work and raising children, heavy burden of responsibility, loss of confidence, flashbacks to occasions of past stress, trauma, and poor quality of nursing care. Conditions related to interpersonal relations included stress due to pressure from superiors and co-workers, attitude of senior colleagues, stress from senior colleagues, verbal abuse from superiors, behavior of doctors, negative feelings toward patients, changes in department assignments after maternity leave, verbal abuse from co-workers, verbal abuse from senior colleagues, neglect of duties by chief nurses, attitude of juniors, cooperation with other departments, and training of juniors. There were more statements about conditions related to the working environment than to interpersonal relations.

Guidelines recommend that clinical laboratories perform phenotypic tests (nitrocefin-based test and penicillin 10-U [P10] or 1-U [P1] zone edge tests) to detect penicillinase in Staphylococcus aureus isolates. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of blaZ encoding penicillinase and perform various phenotypic tests in S. aureus isolates from Japan. We prospectively collected 200 methicillin-susceptible S. aureus isolates from June 2015 to January 2016 and performed six phenotypic tests (nitrocefin-based test, P10 zone edge test/P10 diffusion test, penicillin 2-U [P2] zone edge test/P2 diffusion test, and cloverleaf test) on each sample. We confirmed the presence of blaZ (two blaZ-positive isolates) using PCR. Using blaZ PCR as a standard, we observed a low sensitivity (50%) and positive predictive value (PPV, 50%) of the nitrocefin-based test, low PPV (18.2%) of the P10 zone edge test, low sensitivity (50%) of the P10 diffusion test, low PPV (50% and 22.2%) of the P2 zone edge test and P2 diffusion test, respectively, and low sensitivity (50%) of the cloverleaf test. These data suggest a low performance (sensitivity and PPV) of these six phenotypic tests because of the low prevalence (1%) of blaZ in S. aureus isolates from Japan.
Diffusion ; Japan* ; Penicillinase* ; Penicillins ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Prevalence* ; Prospective Studies ; Staphylococcus aureus* ; Staphylococcus*