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Background: Stress is one of the most important factors that may be accompanied with increased possible prevalence of cardiovascular diseases including myocardial infarction. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between perceived stress intensity and some cardiovascular risk factors in myocardial infarctions’ patients. Methods: The design of the study was cross sectional. Overall, 2400 patients with myocardial infarction were chosen through multistage random sampling. A three-part questionnaire including demographic characteristics, perceived stress, and a checklist to record laboratorial test and electrocardiography changes were used for data collection. Results: The results of the present study showed that 45% of the patients had moderate and 55% had severe stress. Moreover, findings of the research indicated that there were significant differences between the mean stress level in various categories of the variable including gender, education, history of hypertension, blood pressure, diabetes, cigarette smoking, exercising, job, and family history of myocardial diseases. Conclusions: Regarding the high level of perceived stress in patients with myocardial infarction, it is necessary to devise a program and determine stressor factors to modify and decrease them.

Background: During their life, people are constantly moving between health and disease. No doubt, health status is associated with health literacy and attitudes of individuals. Patient education commences early in hospital and continues until full recovery of the patient. Also, it provides appropriate information to patients by which they can acquire a healthier status. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate Iranian nurses’ perspective from barriers to patient education in intensive care unit. Materials and Methods: In this qualitative study, 25 nurses were recruited using purposeful sampling. Data were gathered using semi-structural interviews. Moreover, data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using the content analysis method. Results: Five main barriers were identified as barriers to patient education including nursing personnel shortages, lack of adequate knowledge and motivation, inadequate facilities, ineffective communication, and insufficient supervision and control. Conclusions: The necessity and importance of patient education and the role of nurses in intensive care unit is undeniable. Regarding the importance of the issue, the barriers to effective patient education should be addressed. The barriers, then, should be diminished using appropriate measurements

Background: Conservative oxygen therapy (COT) targets a SpO2 of 90 - 92% using the lowest possible FiO2 for mechanically ventilated (MV) adult patients. Conservative oxygen therapy aims to maintain adequate oxygenation while avoiding the harmful effects of hyperoxaemia. However, a lower SpO2 target during MV is recognised as challenging in current clinical norms. Objectives: We sought to describe intensive care clinicians’ opinion and self-reported practice of conservative oxygen therapy. Methods: The research tool was a multi-choice questionnaire of intensive care clinicians working at 10 affiliated metropolitan tertiary hospitals from January-April, 2014. Results: Four hundred and twelve (84%) staff members responded to the survey. Of these, 91% (375) were intensive care nurses and 9% (37) were medical doctors. A majority of respondents (86%, 356/412) considered oxygen-related lung injury as “Yes, a major concern”. Most respondents, 85% (351/412), felt COT was easy to perform and a few respondents, 6% (23/412), considered performing COT to be stressful. More than 90% of the respondents reported not performing more arterial blood gases to monitor PaO2 during COT and essentially all (98%) indicated a desire to perform COT. Free text comments indicated COT as a challenge to current practice and expressed a strong desire to avoid inadvertent hypoxaemia. Conclusions: Intensive care clinicians varied in their opinion and self-reported practice of conservative oxygen therapy and were genuinely concerned about unintended physiological consequences related to targeting low SpO2 values. We recommend conservative oxygen therapy to be implemented cautiously in conjunction with further evaluation of its impact on outcomes for patients and the perceptions of clinicians.