Search

AIMS: To describe how Danish intensive care unit (ICU)-nurses perceive personal knowledge and skills (self-efficacy) and outcome expectations to interacting with relatives. Moreover, to explore relationships between self-efficacy and outcome expectations and the nurses' attitude towards involving relatives in care-related tasks and allowing relatives to be with the patient during critical situations. BACKGROUND: Interacting with relatives can be a challenging task, and nurses play a leading role in integrating relatives in ICU. Little is known about how ICU-nurses cope with this part of nursing DESIGN: Cross-sectional METHOD: Sixty-eight ICU-nurses responded to a self-administered questionnaire based on Bandura's self-efficacy theory adjusted to critical care. RESULTS: The nurses' perceptions of personal knowledge, skills and expectations to the outcome of interacting with relatives were positive. There were disparities in nurses' level of agreement on when to involve relatives in caring activities. Generally, the nurses did not support the presence of relatives in critical situations. Nurses' outcome expectations were correlated to their attitude towards involving relatives in caring activities. No other statistically significant correlations were found between general attitude, knowledge, skills, and attitude of nurses towards involving relatives in caring activities or allowing them to be with the patient at cardiac arrest or acute intubation. CONCLUSION: The nurses' outcome expectations and self-efficacy in terms of knowledge and skills interacting with relatives were high. There was considerable variation in the nurses' agreement on when to involve relatives in caring activities or allowing them to be with the patient in critical situations. The self-efficacy theory was not supported as a result of lack of correlation between nurses' self-efficacy and outcome expectations and their attitude towards involving relatives in ICU. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The study provides important knowledge to clinicians, educators and managers on how to educate and supervise ICU-nurses to support their efforts to interact proficiently with relatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the pattern of prescribed drug use in Danish children and used a pharmacoepidemiological prescription database to identify all reimbursed prescriptions for children aged 0-15 y living in North Jutland County (population 95 189), Denmark, during 1997. We identified 154 189 prescriptions for 48 091 drug users. The 20 most frequently prescribed chemical substance subgroups comprised 71.3% of all prescriptions. The mean annual prescription rate was 1621/1000 children/y. Overall, 50.6% of the population received one or more prescription. In children younger than 3 y, 75.3% received prescriptions and 17.5% obtained five or more prescriptions. Systemic antibiotics, anti-asthmatics, ophthalmologicals and dermatological corticosteroids accounted for 82% of prescriptions. One-third of the young children received anti-asthmatics, mainly oral beta-2 agonists, and almost half received antibiotics, mainly broad-spectrum penicillins. In the 7-15-y-olds, 39.1% received prescriptions. Hormones, antihistamines, anti-epileptics, anti-acne preparations and anti-diabetics comprised an increasing proportion of prescriptions. About 20% received antibiotics and 6% anti-asthmatics. In conclusion, the level of exposure to prescribed drugs was considerable at all ages and was highest in early childhood. Our study supports the need for epidemiological studies on the reasons for drug use and evaluation of their pharmacological effects in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have suggested that breastfeeding has a long-term influence on brain development. However, interpretation of these findings is complicated by the presence of many potential confounding factors. Only a few studies have examined infants before 1 y of age, although very early assessment might reduce the role of environmental influence. We investigated the association between exclusive breastfeeding and three developmental milestones related to general and fine motor skills and early language development at the age of 8 mo. We followed 1656 healthy, singleton, term infants, with a birthweight of at least 2500 g, born between May 1991 and February 1992 in Aarhus, Denmark. Information was collected at 16 wk gestation, at delivery and when the infant was 8 mo old. Motor skills were evaluated by measurement of crawling and pincer grip. Early language development was defined as the ability to babble in polysyllables. The proportion of infants who mastered the specific milestones increased consistently with increasing duration of breastfeeding. The relative risk for the highest versus the lowest breastfeeding category was 1.3 (95% CI: 1.0-1.6) for crawling, 1.2 (95% CI: 1.1-1.3) for pincer grip and 1.5 (95% CI: 1.3-1.8) for polysyllable babbling. Little change was found after adjustment for confounding. In conclusion, our data support the hypothesis that breastfeeding benefits neurodevelopment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: We aimed to evaluate whether a cheap and less labour-intensive regional implementation strategy for guidelines was sufficient to change knowledge and behaviour among GPs. The model studied was the implementation of anticoagulant therapy to prevent stroke in atrial fibrillation.Method: The intervention took place in the county of Viborg (149 GPs), Denmark, with the county of Ringkøbing (166 GPs) as control. A local interdisciplinary steering group modified national college-based guidelines, followed by a regional dissemination and implementation strategy. The effect of the intervention was evaluated during a follow-up period by a repeated questionnaire and by monitoring prescriptions for oral anticoagulants in 1993 and 1995 in the Danish National Health Service.Results: Adherence to the guidelines was higher after the intervention but, considering secular trends and baseline differences, the guidelines had no significant effect. The use of oral anticoagulants increased substantially in both counties during the 2-year follow-up period, but the difference in relative change between the counties was negligible. Adherence to the guidelines could not be predicted by any of the reported practice characteristics or attitudes to guidelines.Conclusion: Despite solid scientific documentation and regional modification to establish ownership of nationally agreed guidelines, the impact of guidelines on GPs' knowledge and behaviour was disappointing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the effects of anti-epileptic drugs on the intrauterine growth in Denmark. Types of anticonvulsants; Use of multiple regression models in determining the mean birth weight of babies; Increase risk of low birth weight and preterm birth in the children of women receiving anticonvulsant drugs.