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This descriptive study identified students' perspectives of the characteristics used to judge the quality of a classroom nursing instructor. A sample of 171 baccalaureate nursing students from a university in the midwestern United States completed the study. The nursing students completed a questionnaire regarding personal demographics, characteristics of an effective and ineffective instructor, and how their grade and the amount of coursework affected their opinion of the instructor. Content analysis was performed to categorize the characteristics that emerged, with data ranked according to the number of times each characteristic was identified as effective or ineffective. Teaching methods, personality, and presentation of course materials were the three primary characteristics of an effective instructor, according to the students' responses, with personality being most important. Conversely, in related nursing studies of effective teachers, personality characteristics were ranked lower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifies students' perspectives of the characteristics used to judge the quality of a classroom nursing instructor. Completion of a questionnaire regarding personal demographics, characteristics of an effective and ineffective instructor; Content analysis of data to categorize the emerging characteristics; Identification of teaching methods, personality, and presentation of course materials as the three primary characteristics of an effective instructor.

Asymptomatic bacteriuria is considered a transient and benign condition in the geriatric population. Before a diagnosis of a urinary tract infection (UTI) can be made, symptoms and significant bacteriuria must be present. One of these symptoms is malodorous urine. Other symptoms of a UTI, typical in the younger population, have been found to be absent or misleading in the older adult population. Though early detection of UTIs improves outcomes, unnecessary laboratory tests are costly and time-consuming, and may encourage inappropriate antibiotic therapy. The purpose of this study was to determine if urine odor is an accurate predictor of a UTI in the older adult incontinent nursing home population. Ninety-seven recently wet incontinence pads of residents in six Midwestern nursing homes were evaluated for odor within 1 hour of voiding. These results were compared to microscopy and culture results of clean-catch urine samples from these individuals. Defining a UTI as either bacteriuria or bacteriuria and pyuria, using urine odor to identify a UTI resulted in error in one third of cases. Results of this study indicate smell of urine in incontinence pads may be an absent or misleading symptom for UTIs in elderly nursing home residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asymptomatic bacteriuria is considered a transient and benign condition in the geriatric population. Before a diagnosis of a urinary tract infection (UTI) can be made, symptoms and significant bacteriuria must be present. One of these symptoms is malodorous urine. Other symptoms of a UTI, typical in the younger population, have been found to be absent or misleading in the older adult population. Though early detection of UTIs improves outcomes, unnecessary laboratory tests are costly and time-consuming, and may encourage inappropriate antibiotic therapy. The purpose of this study was to determine if urine odor is an accurate predictor of a UTI in the older adult incontinent nursing home population. Ninety-seven recently wet incontinence pads of residents in six Midwestern nursing homes were evaluated for odor within 1 hour of voiding. These results were compared to microscopy and culture results of clean-catch urine samples from these individuals. Defining a UTI as either bacteriuria or bacteriuria and pyuria, using urine odor to identify a UTI resulted in error in one third of cases. Results of this study indicate smell of urine in incontinence pads may be an absent or misleading symptom for UTIs in elderly nursing home residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]