L'attitudine alla comunicazione. Uno studio nel Corso di Laurea in Infermieristica

It is believed that the way of being and the communicative-relational skills of every individual have multifactorial origins, including the quality of primary relationships with caregivers. For some time, the need for health care professionals to possess specific communicative and interpersonal skills has been highlighted. To the degree course in Nursing, like to all other degree programs related to health, access is granted to students who have large individual differences, both in terms of personality, and in terms of relational skills. Each academic year, therefore, the people responsible for the didactic organization of every course, are faced with having to prepare a training plan capable of addressing communicative-relational aspects and, at the same time, of being adequate to the real attitudes of incoming students. Thus, the need for appropriate tools for measuring the personological and vocational traits considered specific to health professions was born. This study has a twofold objective. On one hand, it aims at selecting a battery of psychological tests to detect psychological and attitudinal patterns, to facilitate the coordinators of graduate courses in their didactic organization and planning of educational training; on the other hand, it seeks to assess the correlations between communicative-relational skills (Relational-Communicative style, according to the model of patient-centered medicine-TRS) (Mucchielli’s Test of Spontaneous Attitudes – usual kind of attitude in dual relationships), personality traits (Alexithymia), styles of attachment to parental figures (PBI), and the capability of recognizing facial emotions, in a sample of students enrolled in the first year of a degree in Nursing.

Architetture per smart health: il caso FitStadium

L'obiettivo della tesi è progettare un'architettura abilitante per scenari smart health, concentrandosi sulla parte end-user (non sulla parte server-cloud), ossia sperimentando l'ambito dei wearable devices e facendo riferimento al binomio fitness-Apple Watch, comodo perchè presente nell'azienda FitStadium che ci fornisce motivazioni, requisiti e goals. Nel primo capitolo si analizzeranno le soluzioni offerte attualmente dal mercato per la realizzazione di servizi legati al fitness, focalizzandosi in particolare sulle architetture proposte e come quest'ultime possano convivere con l'ecosistema FitStadium. Il secondo capitolo è riservato invece all'approfondimento delle tecnologie Apple, che verranno utilizzate concretamente per la realizzazione del caso di studio. Ancora una volta si farà attenzione alle possibilità architetturali offerte da queste tecnologie. Nel terzo capitolo viene trattato nella sua interezza il caso di studio, analizzandone in particolare lo stato pre e post tesi. Verrà cioè descritta l'applicazione implementata insieme alla presentazione di un'architettura abilitante anche per gli scenari smart health. Infine, all'interno del capito 4 viene descritto più precisamente il concetto di smart health e il percorso che ha condotto alla sua definizione.

All in the family: atypical Hsp70 chaperones are conserved modulators of Hsp70 activity.

Divergent relatives of the Hsp70 protein chaperone such as the Hsp110 and Grp170 families have been recognized for some time, yet their biochemical roles remained elusive. Recent work has revealed that these "atypical" Hsp70s exist in stable complexes with classic Hsp70s where they exert a powerful nucleotide-exchange activity that synergizes with Hsp40/DnaJ-type cochaperones to dramatically accelerate Hsp70 nucleotide cycling. This represents a novel evolutionary transition from an independent protein-folding chaperone to what appears to be a dedicated cochaperone. Contributions of the atypical Hsp70s to established cellular roles for Hsp70 now must be deciphered.

Interprofessional Education in Anatomy: Learning Together in Medical and Nursing Training

Teamwork and the interprofessional collaboration of all health professions are a guarantee of patient safety and highly qualified treatment in patient care. In the daily clinical routine, physicians and nurses must work together, but the education of the different health professions occurs separately in various places, mostly without interrelated contact. Such training abets mutual misunderstanding and cements professional protectionism, which is why interprofessional education can play an important role in dismantling such barriers to future cooperation. In this article, a pilot project in interprofessional education involving both medical and nursing students is presented, and the concept and the course of training are described in detail. The report illustrates how nursing topics and anatomy lectures can be combined for interprofessional learning in an early phase of training. Evaluation of the course showed that the students were highly satisfied with the collaborative training and believed interprofessional education (IPE) to be an important experience for their future profession and understanding of other health professionals. The results show that the IPE teaching concept, which combines anatomy and nursing topics, provides an optimal setting for learning together and helps nurses and doctors in training to gain knowledge about other health professionals’ roles, thus evolving mutual understanding.

Improving Health Literacy in Connecticut: A Prescription for Healthy Lives and Communities

The Practicum Project is a supervised service-learning experience that integrates curriculum with hands-on experience in a public health setting. All 2nd year students are expected to work collaboratively in assessing the extent, causes and public health responses to a selected public health problem confronting citizens of Connecticut. The focal topic for the 2006 Project was Health Literacy in Connecticut. During this past spring, 17 students of our program, working alongside and in partnership with more than 75 community-based stakeholders across Connecticut, completed over 1800 hours of service-learning in pursuit of answers to 3 questions: Can the present and future burden of health literacy be estimated for Connecticut? What is the current capacity of Connecticut’s health and social service system to halt the crisis we confront today? Can new policy and regulatory strategies be put forth to reduce the severity and scope of the problem? This occasion and the accompanying report mark the completion of their project and acknowledge the considerable contributions that many have made to the success of this educational experience. Through those combined efforts, students gained experience and skill addressing one of the most significant public health issues of our time; also, they gained insight into the breadth and capacity of our public health system and established invaluable relationships with public health practitioners, agencies and institutions around the state. Their report documents a rich campus-community partnership to advance public health goals.

All Hands On Deck, v.2, 2 April 2009

Actions Teams Launched.

All Hands on Deck, v.4, 16 April 2009

Medication Reconcilliation

All Hands on Deck, v.3, 9 April 2009

New Isolation Signs

Brandon/Hill selected list of print books and journals in allied health*

This list of 424 books and 77 journals is intended as a selection guide for print literature to be used in a library supporting allied health educational programs or allied health personnel in either an academic or health care setting. Because of the impossibility of covering the large number and wide variety of allied health professions and occupations, the recommended publications are focused primarily on the educational programs listed and recognized by the American Medical Association and other accrediting bodies. Books and journals are categorized by subject; the book list is followed by an author/editor index, and the subject list of journals by an alphabetical title listing. Items suggested for initial purchase (167 books and 31 journals) are indicated by asterisks. To purchase the entire collection of books and journals (2000 subscriptions) would require an expenditure of about $31,970. The cost of only the asterisked items totals $12,515.

Mental Health Effects of Equine Therapy with Children

This study examined the effects of eight weekly lessons of therapeutic horseback riding (THR) on five children between the ages of 6 and 12 years who displayed behavioral issues, mood disturbance, relationship issues, or other mental health disorders. All of the children's parents/caregivers completed the Child Behavior Checklist for Ages 6-18 at the onset of the lessons and at the conclusion of the lessons. The children did not show any significant improvement on the Internalizing, Externalizing, Total Problems scales or the syndrome scales. However, comparisons between the pre-test and post-test scores on the Behavior scale and the Externalizing scale showed positive trends which warrant further study. The lack of significance in the data suggests that a greater participant population or a mixed method study using a combination of quantitative and qualitative strategies may yield more conclusive results.

Mapping and exploring health systems' response to intimate partner violence in Spain

Background: For a comprehensive health sector response to intimate partner violence (IPV), interventions should target individual and health facility levels, along with the broader health systems level which includes issues of governance, financing, planning, service delivery, monitoring and evaluation, and demand generation. This study aims to map and explore the integration of IPV response in the Spanish national health system. Methods: Information was collected on five key areas based on WHO recommendations: policy environment, protocols, training, monitoring and prevention. A systematic review of public documents was conducted to assess 39 indicators in each of Spain’s 17 regional health systems. In addition, we performed qualitative content analysis of 26 individual interviews with key informants responsible for coordinating the health sector response to IPV in Spain. Results: In 88% of the 17 autonomous regions, the laws concerning IPV included the health sector response, but the integration of IPV in regional health plans was just 41%. Despite the existence of a supportive national structure, responding to IPV still relies strongly on the will of health professionals. All seventeen regions had published comprehensive protocols to guide the health sector response to IPV, but participants recognized that responding to IPV was more complex than merely following the steps of a protocol. Published training plans existed in 43% of the regional health systems, but none had institutionalized IPV training in medical and nursing schools. Only 12% of regional health systems collected information on the quality of the IPV response, and there are many limitations to collecting information on IPV within health services, for example underreporting, fears about confidentiality, and underuse of data for monitoring purposes. Finally, preventive activities that were considered essential were not institutionalized anywhere. Conclusions: Within the Spanish health system, differences exist in terms of achievements both between regions and between the areas assessed. Progress towards integration of IPV has been notable at the level of policy, less outstanding regarding health service delivery, and very limited in terms of preventive actions.

Mujeres, salud y profesiones sanitarias: revisión historiográfica y estudio de casos en la sanidad española contemporánea

La reconstrucción histórica de las prácticas de salud de las mujeres, tomando el caso español como campo de pruebas y modelo de análisis, constituye una de las líneas directrices de éste trabajo. Sobre la base de una importante cantidad de estudios empíricos, ajenos y propios, centrados muy en especial en el área de la enfermería, se puede delinear una imagen de conjunto sobre el trabajo sanitario de las mujeres, en el espacio geográfico y temporal objeto de nuestro estudio y contestar así a una serie de cuestiones en las que lo experto, la experiencia, la autoridad y los procesos de legitimación profesional están omnipresentes. La segunda de las vertientes abordadas es la de las mujeres como pacientes y usuarias de prácticas de salud. Las llamadas “patologías de mujeres” como la clorosis o la neurastenia y el significado histórico del protagonismo de las mujeres en las campañas y programas de educación sanitaria son otros tantos ejemplos que permiten desvelar discursos cargados de elementos ideológicos tradicionales pese a su aparente barniz de modernidad. Como principales conclusiones, hay que destacar la importancia que alcanzaron los discursos androcéntricos en temas concernientes a salud y mujer de forma global, o los más específicos como el del culto a la fecundidad para justificar unas tareas sociales diferentes y complementarias a las del hombre, además de señalar la conveniencia de explorar nuevos caminos a recorrer, tanto desde el punto de vista temático como en lo relativo a los recursos heurísticos.