The goal of this article was to assess the delivery of patient health-education, relative to cardiovascular disease from the perspective of physicians and nurses, as well as from the perspective of ...citizens living in the Czech Republic.
The article is based on data acquired from the "Intervention procedures in preventive cardiology" grant project. To evaluate patient health education, non-standardized questionnaires intended for physicians (n = 1000) and nurses (n = 1000) were used. A combination of a non-standardized questionnaire and a standardized questionnaire (SF-36) was used to assess citizen (n = 1992) viewpoints. The actual investigation took place from April 1 to April 20, 2016 and was implemented over the entirety of the Czech Republic. Data were analyzed using the SASD v. 1.4.12 program. Both first and second degree sorting was used. The degree of dependence of selected characteristics was established based on the Chi-square test and the T-test.
A bit more than half (53.1%) of the physicians indicated that nurses carried out patient education regarding influenceable risk factors associated with cardiovascular diseases, while 71.6% of nurses reported carrying out this duty. The overwhelming majority of physicians (97.1%) and nurses (92.3%) report informing patients about how to improve their health condition. Citizen respondents reported that topics such as nutrition, exercise, smoking cessation, stress reduction, and the drug side effects use were discussed with them more frequently by physicians than by nurses. Citizen respondents reported that nutrition was discussed most frequently with them, while the issue of smoking cessation was discussed the least frequently.
Our analysis showed that physicians engage in patient education more frequently than nurses. At the same time, results suggest that a relatively significant number of physicians and nurses rarely or never educate regarding risk factors associated with cardiovascular diseases.
Cardiovascular diseases are the most common cause of deaths. Cardiovascular mortality is influenced by several factors that can be changed by our behaviour. The goal of this study was to survey the ...opinions of physicians and nurses on the topic of preventative cardiovascular risk factors.
The inquiry was carried out using a standardized structured interviewer-respondent interview (face-to-face). The final form of the interview was based on the results of a pre-investigation. The study was anonymous, participation was voluntary, and the actual interview did not contain any controversial ethical questions. To meet these goals, a non-standardized questionnaire for nurses and physicians was developed. The questions evaluated the interest, coping difficulties, and efficiency of multimodal interventions in practice. The study sample included 1000 physicians and 1000 nurses. The results were statistically evaluated.
The survey of physician and nurse opinions showed that patients were primarily interested in interventions in the area of nutrition, weight loss, and coping with pharmacotherapy; however, the overall lack of interest in smoking cessation was a surprising result. Physicians and nurses viewed smoking cessation as the most difficult risk factors to influence, followed by nutrition changes, and weight loss. It was noteworthy that more than half of the interviewed physicians and nurses were of the opinion that behavioral interventions were only sometimes or rarely effective.
The results of our study show that nurses and physicians largely agree on behavioral risk factors and how to influence them. Nurses and physicians in Czech health care generally agree that patients are interested in influencing the above risk factors, being least interested in exercise and smoking cessation. Nurses and physicians also consider smoking reduction and weight loss as particularly difficult risk factors to manage. Results from this study will contributed to the overall goal of preparing and implementing short-term and long-term interventions in preventive cardiology.
Pain is a medical and nursing problem that is common in surgical departments. Inadequate pain management can lead to patient distress, as well as extending the period in which the patient's quality ...of life is reduced. The standardized SF-MPQ-2 questionnaire provides nurses with the opportunity to assess pain within a broader context. The aim of this descriptive and exploratory study was to describe the state of pain assessment in surgical patients in the South Bohemian Region and to highlight the benefits of using a standardized tool for proper pain assessment. The research was carried out using a quantitative survey within the South Bohemian Region (Czech Republic). The participants in the study were nurses working in surgical departments in hospitals in the region as well as hospitalized patients. The results show that nurses pay slightly more attention to pain assessments than doctors. We know that, generally, pain decreases with time after surgery. Nonetheless, returning pain, as well as continuous pain, can occur, both of which have an emotional component. The results of this study are directed at nurses and include a call for more effective pain management through improved assessment.
Catheter ablation procedures have recently become a widely accepted method for treating cardiac arrhythmias, and referrals for these procedures have been steadily increasing. As a result, it is now ...common that sheath removal is handled as a nursing procedure. Regardless of who performs the sheath removal, it is important to extract ablation sheaths without any early or late complications.
The aim of this randomised study was to determine the safety of sheath extraction after heparin reversal with low-dose protamine sulfate in patients undergoing radiofrequency catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation and whether these sheaths can be safely removed by nurses.
Eighty-one patients were randomly assigned to either receiving protamine to reverse heparin after an ablation ( n=40) or to the standard protocol without heparin reversal ( n=41). Nurse-led sheath removal was done in the cath lab (protamine group) or on the ward (standard group) as soon as activated partial thromboplastin time dropped below 60 s. All adverse events, groin compression time, immobilisation time and procedure characteristics were recorded.
The manual compression time for the standard group was significantly longer than for the protamine group (15.9 ± 2.5 vs. 21.9 ± 3.1 minutes, P<0.001) as well as the total immobilisation time (13.2 ± 2.4 vs. 20.3 ± 3.8 hours, P=0.01). Minor groin haematomas occurred less frequently in the protamine group (4 vs. 12, P=0.02) and the haematomas tended to be smaller (4.1 ± 2.1 vs. 5.2 ± 2.5 cm, P=0.09). No serious adverse events were observed when the femoral sheaths were extracted by specially trained staff nurses.
Fewer and milder complications and shorter immobilisation times were reported with protamine reversal compared to the conventional method. Staff nurses can safely remove femoral venous sheaths after a radiofrequency ablation for atrial fibrillation.
The heart and vessel diseases rank among main causes of death worldwide. In the Czech Republic, they account for a high proportion of hospitalizations. Although such diseases can be very well ...influenced through elimination of influenceable risk factors, their prevalence in the Czech population is still high. That leads to rising need to increase the efficiency of health education activities. Therefore the article aims at revealing the current status of education in the area of prevention of cardiovascular diseases, as seen by the citizens themselves, thus providing a feedback that can help to improve the situation in this area.
The current status of education in the area of cardiovascular diseases, as seen by the citizens, was investigated through a combination of a non-standardized questionnaire with the SF-36 standardized questionnaire. The investigation took place all over the Czech Republic during April 1–20, 2016. The statistical data analysis was made under use of the SASD program, version 1.4.12. The selection set of citizens consisted of 1992 respondents; from the perspective of age segmentation of the basic set, the data are representative for individual groups of Czech citizens aged 40 years and more.
It was found out that 71.5% Czech citizens aged 40 years and more were educated in the physician's office on the ways to improve their health condition. 71.4% citizens described the physician as the education carrier, while 25.4% respondents assigned that role to the nurse. Within the area of influenceable risk factors, 50.8% respondents were educated in the area of nutrition, 51.0% were educated in the area of blood pressure home measurement, and 52.9% in the area of exercise. 43.9% respondents were educated on the issue of smoking, and 36.0% respondents on the issue of excessive abuse of alcohol. It was also shown that respondents who can be considered endangered for different reasons were educated in greater amount. That seems insufficient from long-term perspective, with regard to the demographic trends and the concept of active ageing, particularly because of the fact that the role of education consists not only in the effort to contribute to improve the quality of life but also in delaying the manifestation of diseases and of the economic risks related to the decreasing number of economically active persons.
At present, health characteristics of Roma minority within the Czech Republic are generally unknown. Therefore we examined a Roma population for some anthropometrical, biochemical and genetic ...parameters.
Groups include Roma aged above 18 years (men, women), with permanent residence in the South Bohemia Region. The Roma group (302 individuals) was selected using the snowball sampling method--the same method was used to select the non-Roma control group (78 individuals) for total cholesterol and blood sugar reference values. The main non-Roma control group was selected using the quota selection method (298 individuals). All participants completed a life style questionnaire, had their body measurements taken, were weighed, had their blood pressure and heart rates measured, had a capillary blood sample taken.
The non-Roma population had a lower Body Mass Index (BMI) (25.86 ± 4.23 vs. 27.45 ± 6.48 kg/m², p = 0.0004). The difference in BMI and weight was found to be associated with the MC4R gene. The values of systolic and diastolic blood pressure, total cholesterol, blood sugar did not differ with regard to the tested polymorphisms. We did not find any difference in the prevalence of MC4R or TMEM18 between groups.
Despite educational efforts to introduce healthier life styles into the Roma population, there has been only limited success; as a result, Roma are very likely to suffer from premature complications of atherosclerotic processes, mostly due to theirs life style. Intensive further research is needed to improve the health conditions of the Roma minority, while still respecting their cultural differences.
Nutrition is an important social determinant of health that influences the ageing process. The aim of this study was to evaluate the nutritional condition of a group of seniors and identify the ...bio-psycho-social factors that increase the risk of malnutrition.
The research was conducted using a quantitative method. The standardised scales Mini Nutritional Assessment - Short Form (MNA-SF) and the Geriatric depression scale (GDS-5) were used to evaluate the nutritional condition and tendency towards depression of the tested group. This group consisted of seniors aged 75 and above living in home environment in the České Budějovice region. The group was comprised of 320 seniors, 115 men (35.9%) and 205 women (64.1%), which corresponds to the composition of the population in the chosen region of the Czech Republic. Statistical data analysis was conducted using SASD 1.4.10 and SPSS 15.0 programs. Pearson's chi-squared test (Χ²) and Cramér's V were chosen for statistical testing. The significance level was set at 5%.
The average BMI value of the seniors was 26.2 kg/m² (overweight). This value decreased with age. More than one third of the respondents were evaluated as being at risk of malnutrition (36.3%). Unintended weight loss was determined as the strongest risk factor of malnutrition. Seniors who had lowered their food intake stated unintended weight loss 10 times more often than respondents with no noticeable reduction in food intake. Seniors who showed signs of depression indicated weight loss three and a half times more often than respondents without depression. Meanwhile acute illness increased the risk by three times. Depression was found to be the cause and also the consequence of malnutrition.
Despite the high prevalence of overweight and obesity, a large proportion of the respondents were running the risk of malnutrition. It was concluded that the strongest risk factors for malnutrition in the respondents were unintended weight loss, depression and lowered food intake. Compared to biological factors, social and economic factors were less significant in causing malnutrition in seniors.
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