AIM: to investigate the effectiveness of 10% povidone-iodine after a 30-second or 2-minute drying time on microbial count reduction at the point of a Peripheral Intravascular Catheter (PIC) insertion. A quasi-experimental design was adopted. In total, 53 patients were enrolled, 25 were exposed to a 2-m drying time and 28 to a 30-s drying time. From the preliminary results of this study, no differences in the occurrence of contamination have emerged between patients receiving 30-s and 2-m drying time for 10% povidone-iodine solutions.

OBJECTIVE: To verify the effect of an educative nursing intervention composed of home visits and phone calls on patients' knowledge about the disease, self-care and adhesion to the treatment. METHODS: Randomized clinical trial with patients with recent hospitalization caused by decompensated heart failure. There were two groups: the intervention group, which has received four home visits and four phone calls to reinforce the guidelines during six months of follow up; and the control group, which has received conventional follow up with no visits or phone calls. RESULTS: Two hundred patients were randomized (101 in the intervention group and 99 in the control group). After six months, a significant improvement was observed in self-care and knowledge about the disease in the intervention group (P=0.001 and P<0.001), respectively; the adhesion to the treatment, measured and compared between the groups, was significantly higher in the intervention group (P=0.001). CONCLUSION: the strategy of home visits to patients who were recently hospitalized with decompensated heart failure was effective in improving the outcomes assessed and its implementation deserves to be considered in Brazil aiming at avoiding unplanned hospitalizations. NCT-01213862

OBJECTIVES: to compare the perceptions of quality of life (QOL) and to identify factors associated with QOL among seniors living in the community in Porto Alegre, RS and institutionalized seniors from the countryside of Minas Gerais, Brazil. METHOD: this study used secondary data from two cross-sectional epidemiological studies. The sample consisted of 288 seniors living in the community and 76 institutionalized seniors. An instrument addressing socio-demographic data and the WHOQOL-BREF were administered. RESULTS: bivariate analysis showed that age, gender, schooling, self-reported health, and leisure presented statistically significant differences between institutionalized and non-institutionalized seniors. The Psychological and Social Relationships domains also presented statistically significant differences. The variables that presented significant correlation in multivariate analysis in relation to the Psychological domain were education, assessments of health, leisure and in relation to the Social domain, education and age. CONCLUSION: being institutionalized did not influence the older adults' perceptions of QOL, but the socio-demographic characteristics and self-assessments of health did.

OBJECTIVES: This study's objective consisted of the construction and validation of a scale to identify the representation of human vulnerability in the health field. METHOD: its development was divided into three steps: a bibliographic review and exploratory interviews were conducted to establish the items and their subsequent aggregation into dimensions; evaluation by an expert committee; and pre-test. The scale's psychometric properties were evaluated based on its application to a sample of individuals (nurses, physicians, and senior nursing and medical undergraduate students). Validity, reliability, and internal consistency tests were performed. RESULTS: the scale obtained consists of four dimensions (knowledge of intrinsic vulnerability, knowledge of extrinsic vulnerability, experience of vulnerability, and perception of vulnerability in patients). The scale presents good internal consistency with high Cronbach's alpha coefficient values. CONCLUSION: The Representation of Human Vulnerability in Health Workers Scale is easy to apply and presents reliable psychometric properties. It is an innovative tool that can be used in the development of studies addressing human vulnerability.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the elderly persons' functionality, based on the International Classification of Functionality. METHODS: a cross-sectional, descriptive study; a stratified random sample of 903 elderly persons; a confidence level of 95%; and a margin of error of 2.5%. Questionnaire based on the International Classification of Functionality; data was collected based on structured interviews undertaken by health professionals in the health centers in the Alentejo region of Portugal. RESULTS: 30.7% of the elderly persons stated that they were illiterate, and 22.9% lived alone. Feeding/dietary (18.7%), housing (19.2%) and health needs (26.0%) were not met. Orientation functions were maintained in 83.4%; 58% of the elderly persons referred to pain so intense that it required care; 73.3% of the elderly persons did not have functional dentition. Levels of performance were superior to 80% in the participation activities: washing oneself (82.6%), toileting (92.2%), dressing, eating, and drinking (89%). CONCLUSION: although a progressive decline in functionality is observed as age advances, the majority of dimensions are preserved until around 75 years of age.

OBJECTIVE: This paper focuses on the policy context for the deployment of nurses in advanced roles, with particular reference to Portugal. The health sector in Portugal, as in all countries, is labour intensive, and the scope to utilise nurses in more advanced roles is currently being debated. METHODS: Mixed methods were used: an analysis of international data on the nursing workforce; an analysis of documents and media articles; interviews with key-informants; an online survey of managers, and a technical workshop with key-informants. CONCLUSIONS: The limited evidence base on nurses in advanced roles in Portugal is a constraint on progress, but it is not an excuse for inaction. Further research in Portugal on health professionals in innovative roles would assist in informing policy direction. There is the need to move forward with a fully informed policy dialogue, taking account of the current political, economic and health service realities of Portugal.

OBJECTIVES: to determine the prevalence and key factors associated with fatigue in chronic low back pain patients. METHODS: cross-sectional study of 215 chronic low back pain patients from three health care centers and two industrial corporations. The crude prevalence of fatigue and its 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated. Associations between fatigue and the independent variables were measured. RESULTS: the prevalence of fatigue among the participants was 26.0% [95% CI: 20.3 - 32.5]. Fatigue was independently associated with depression and self-efficacy. An increase of one unit in the score of depression increased the risk of fatigue by 9%; an increase of one unit in the score of self-efficacy reduced the risk of fatigue by 2%. CONCLUSIONS: fatigue was prevalent in chronic low back pain patients and associated with depression and self-efficacy. Knowing these factors can direct strategies for prevention and control of fatigue in chronic low back pain patients.

OBJECTIVES: To analyze the relation between psychosocial and sociodemographic variables in nursing professionals. To discover the levels of job satisfaction, psychosomatic symptoms and psychological well-being in nurses. METHOD: The research was conducted in a sample of 476 nurses / as from nine hospitals in the region of Murcia (Spain). An occupational health protocol was distributed among the sample participants for completion, which contained tools for measuring and describing psychosocial and sociodemographic variables. RESULTS: Although there is no high risk for psychological problems among the sample participants, psychosomatic symptoms, job dissatisfaction, and low psychological wellbeing are present. CONCLUSIONS: The results contribute to research on the subject by identifying the presence of psychosocial disorders in nursing professionals, associated with job conditions and certain psychosocial and sociodemographic variables.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the self-esteem of Nursing faculty in public and private universities and compare the measures presented by two groups of teachers. This descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional quantitative study was conducted with 71 teachers from two universities (public and private) from a municipality in the south of the State of Minas Gerais. After pilot testing and validation, A questionnaire and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale were used. It was found that most teachers had high self-esteem, with no significant difference between the two groups. When the continuous scores on this scale were analyzed, there was a significant difference between universities, showing that the private university teachers had lower self-esteem scores. The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale showed high value for coefficient alpha. It was concluded that self-esteem was high predominantly in the studied teachers, but those from the private university had lower scores. These data may help institutions to reflect on the issue and invest in building healthy environments, with the worker/teacher of Nursing as the protagonist, which represents advancement in the knowledge of the subject in the field of Nursing.

OBJECTIVE: Describe the planning of contents on nursing records for use in a virtual learning environment, based on Individualized Teaching Programming, a didactic resource that uses basic principles of behavioral analysis. METHOD: Final objectives were specified, after defining the intermediary components to achieve each final objective, as well as the preliminary requirements for each intermediary component. At the end of this process, teaching activities were planned and organized in steps the students need to develop. RESULTS: By breaking up the contents into behaviors, seven action categories emerged: impartiality, organization, honesty, objectiveness, coherence, readability and discernment. CONCLUSION: the use of Individualized Teaching Programming as a didactic resource to plan contents on nursing records is feasible to identify the units and modules for the development of a course in a virtual learning environment for nursing professionals.

OBJECTIVES: to validate the concept "risk for decreased cardiac output". METHOD: Six of the eight steps suggested in the technique developed by Walker & Avant were adopted to analyze the concept of the phenomenon under study and the proposal made by Hoskins was used for content validation, taking into account agreement achieved among five experts. RESULTS: the concept "decreased cardiac output" was found in the nursing and medical fields and refers to the heart's pumping capacity while the concept "risk" is found in a large number of disciplines. In regard to the defining attributes, "impaired pumping capacity" was the main attribute of decreased cardiac output and "probability" was the main attribute of risk. The uses and defining attributes of the concepts "decreased cardiac output" and "risk" were analyzed as well as their antecedent and consequent events in order to establish the definition of "risk for decreased cardiac output", which was validated by 100% of the experts. CONCLUSION: The obtained data indicate that the risk for decreased cardiac output phenomenon can be a nursing diagnosis and refining it can contribute to the advancement of nursing classifications in this context.

OBJECTIVES: to analyze work accidents involving exposure to biological materials which took place among personnel working in nursing and to evaluate the influence of the organizational culture on the occurrence of these accidents. METHOD: a retrospective, analytical study, carried out in two stages in a hospital that was part of the Network for the Prevention of Work Accidents. The first stage involved the analysis of the characteristics of the work accidents involving exposure to biological materials as recorded over a seven-year period by the nursing staff in the hospital studied, and registered in the Network databank. The second stage involved the analysis of 122 nursing staff members' perception of the institutional culture, who were allocated to the control group (workers who had not had an accident) and the case group (workers who had had an accident). RESULTS: 386 accidents had been recorded: percutaneous lesions occurred in 79% of the cases, needles were the materials involved in 69.7% of the accidents, and in 81.9% of the accident there was contact with blood. Regarding the influence of the organizational culture on the occurrence of accidents, the results obtained through the analysis of the two groups did not demonstrate significant differences between the average scores attributed by the workers in each organizational value or practice category. It is concluded that accidents involving exposure to biological material need to be avoided, however, it was not possible to confirm the influence of organizational values or practices on workers' behavior concerning the occurrence of these accidents.