1,720,967 research outputs found
Influencing infection control practice: Assessing the impact of a supportive intervention for nurses
No full textThe aim of this research was to examine nurses' and health care assistants' perspectives of infection control practice on one hospital ward and use this as the basis for the development, implementation and evaluation of an education and support programme for improving practice on the ward. In Phase I of the study, nurses and health care assistants were interviewed using a semistructured interview schedule to explore their views and anxieties about infection control practice and identify their priorities for practice development. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of these data revealed that respondents' concerns related primarily to the use of Contact Precautions for patients with Clostridium difficile associated diarrhoea (CDAD) and Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Structured observations of practice were employed to confirm the prevalence of the issues raised in relation to this and provide an understanding of their context. The findings of Phase I informed the design of an intervention to improve practice. This involved the development of a practice guideline on Contact Precautions and the availability of practical instruction and support during its implementation. In Phase II of the study, participant observations of practice were conducted to gain an understanding of nurses' and health care assistants' behaviour and in particular, their responses to the supportive intervention. Their perceptions of its impact on their practice were ascertained in Phase III using semi-structured interviews. Qualitative analysis of these data revealed that participants experienced great difficulty understanding and implementing infection control recommendations. Factors that may help explain this include nurses' and health care assistants' knowledge and skills in infection control, their personal belief systems and self-preservation instincts. In addition, the recommendation to use Contact Precautions for patients with infectious conditions such as CDAD and MRSA may itself counteract attempts to promote the routine use of infection control precautions in clinical practice. It is suggested that in relation to infection control, there may be a need to radically re-think the ways in which health care workers are educated and supported in practice. Moreover, it is argued that until the ambivalent evidence base relating to the use of Contact Precautions is resolved, messages about infection control are likely to generate confusion amongst healthcare workers
The child's experience of single room isolation: a literature review
No full textStudies have shown that people who require single room isolation while in hospital often feel lonely, sad, worried, bored and in need of information. A literature review identified only 16 papers reporting on the child’s experience of isolation. Findings indicate that children feel lonely, are scared of the personal protective equipment and feel bored. Patients’ parents feel guilty, worried and under increased pressure to visit their children. It is also suggested that isolation may affect child development
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Care bundles to reduce central line-associated bloodstream infections in the neonatal unit: a systematic review and meta-analysis
No full textBackground: Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) are associated with increased mortality, prolonged hospitalisation and increased healthcare costs. Care bundles have reduced CLABSIs in adult intensive care units (ICUs) but replication in paediatric ICUs has had inconsistent outcomes. A systematic review was performed to assess the evidence for the efficacy of care bundles in reducing CLABSIs in the neonatal unit (NNU).Methods: MEDLINE, CINAHL and EMBASE were searched from January 2010 up to January 2017. The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Zetoc and Ethos were searched for additional studies. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs), quasi-experimental and observational studies were eligible. The primary outcome measure was CLABSI rates per 1000 central line, or patient, days. A meta-analysis was performed using random effects modelling.Results: Twenty-four studies were eligible for inclusion: six were performed in Europe, 12 were in North America, two in Australia and four were in low/middle-income countries. Five were observational studies and 19 were before and after quality improvement studies. No RCTs were found. Meta-analysis revealed a statistically significant reduction in CLABSIs following the introduction of care bundles (rate ratio=0.40 (CI 0.31 to 0.51), p<0.00001), which equates to a 60% reduction in CLABSI rate.Conclusion: There is a substantial body of quasi-experimental evidence to suggest that care bundles may reduce CLABSI rates in the NNU, though it is not clear which bundle elements are effective in specific settings. Future research should focus on determining what processes promote the effective implementation of infection prevention recommendations, and which elements represent essential components of such care bundles
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
- …
