Olga Verderese--a life dedicated to nursing

The aim of the research was to describe the educational and professional history of Olga Verderese and highlight her remarkable contributions to the scientific field of the profession. It was based on Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and scientific field. The sociohistorical study used sources such as interviews with Olga Verderese, a thesis and a dissertation on the topic and documents such as articles, books and recommendations by the Brazilian Nursing Association (ABEn). It considers that the biographee had a recognized social capital when she took up Nursing. Olga Verderese worked at the Nursing Schools of Bahia and Porto Alegre and remained for a long time at the Pan-American Health Organization, with outstanding work in Latin America. In addition, in the 1950s she took part in the research called Survey of Resources and Needs of Nursing in Brazil.     

Bioethical focus in the scientific production of nurses: characterization and analysis

Bioethics raises ethical questions inherent to life, stimulated by biomedical and technological advances. Nursing has taken an interest in bioethical studies with the appearance of the first ethical studies based on gender relations. Here we undertake a quantitative-qualitative study of the scientific production of nurses in Brazil into Bioethics. The bibliographical survey considered postgraduate studies through CEPEn catalogs and articles published in national Nursing journals between 1990 and 2002. Reading and analysis of the material revealed that bioethical studies carried out by nurses are principally focused on the nursing professional. Production is seen to be sparse, with post-graduate studies containing the most examples.     

Authorship and data reporting according to gender in four Spanish biomedical journals]

AIMS: To describe authorship according to gender in the articles published in four Spanish scientific journals of general medicine and public health, and to analyse the type of presentation of the results in relation to the sex of the subjects of the study. METHODS: We examined 423 articles from four Spanish scientific journals published during 1998. RESULTS: 70.7% of the articles revised had a man as the first author. The sex difference was significant in the editorials (12.4% of the women vs. 29.8% of the men, p < 0.05). Stratification of the results by sex was presented in 167 articles and in 85.6% of them the information about men. DISCUSSION: Gender inequalities in the publication of scientific works in the field of general medicine and public health are found.     

Pharyngocutaneous fistulae after total laryngectomy: a systematic review

Nursing care to patients after total laryngectomy should be based on scientific knowledge. Evidence-based practice is a type of approach that stimulates the use of research results in clinical practice. This study presents a systematic review that aimed to identify the main treatments for pharyngocutaneous fistulae after total laryngectomy. Articles were selected from five databases: Pubmed, Cinahl, Biomednet Research Tools, Cochrane Library and Lilacs. The review sample consisted of 37 articles. After analyzing the articles included in the review, results showed that conservative treatment is commonly used for pharyngocutaneous fistulae, recommending intensive hygiene and wound treatment. The use of research results in clinical practice will grant greater consistency to nurses' actions in care for patients with pharyngocutaneous fistulae.     

Post-graduate education in the nursing school of Sao Paulo at Ribeirao Preto: historical evolution and contributions to nursing development

This study aims at reviewing the 25 years (1975-2000) since the first graduate program was offered by the University of S?o Paulo at Ribeir?o Preto College of Nursing based on a critical reflection about the creation and development of graduate programs. The methodology applied was a quantitative assessment regarding the scientific production published in the literature about the theme. Results showed that the graduate programs were consolidated in the 1990s, when three doctoral programs were created.: Psychiatric Nursing, Fundamental Nursing and Public Health Nursing. These accomplishments require an increase in international visibility.     

Risk in dementia care: searching for the evidence

Effective and efficient search methods are required to retrieve robust evidence to inform the study of risk communication such as in dementia care. In this article, we draw on a study which appraised 12 bibliographic databases and one online search engine for this purpose by measuring their ability to identify relevant papers published up to December 2013 when applying a consistent search strategy on the topic of research on risk concepts and risk communication in dementia. We also searched reference lists of literature reviews. We retrieved 31 relevant articles. We took measures of sensitivity (ability to retrieve relevant papers) and precision (ability to avoid retrieving irrelevant papers), and we identified unique articles and the dispersion of relevant results when using database relevancy-sorting functions. We found that Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health and PsycINFO had the highest levels of sensitivity; Social Services Abstracts, Social Care Online and Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts had the highest levels of precision. We rated Google Scholar (using the first 300 hits retrieved) third on sensitivity, seventh on precision, and found it had a more effective sort by relevancy function than any of the databases. We found that five databases and Google Scholar retrieved at least one study not identified by any other database. We found that none of the databases retrieved all of the relevant articles identified by that database within the first 25% of results when using the sort by relevancy function (where this was available). We concluded that it is necessary to use a number of databases for effective searching on this topic. The approaches we report in this article assist in creating a comprehensive search strategy and can be used by researchers to build social science risk knowledge methodically.     

The (in)visible gender of old age in the knowledge of nursing

It is a bibliographical study in which the scientific production of Nursing regarding Women in Old Age was surveyed. The study was based on the Catalog of Dissertations and Theses from the CD-ROM of the Center for Studies and Research on Nursing (CEPEn) of the Brazilian Nursing Association (ABEn), from 1979 to 1999. It was aimed at getting to know the deviations and/or approximations in the knowledge of Nursing by way of the object of study of the Ph.D. thesis 'Health practice and knowledge of old women in the gender perspective'. It was found out that old women have been investigated in few studies. In addition, the objects of these investigations have strongly deviated from gender issues, demonstrating the sexless aspect of old age and the denial of women's social roles.     

Duplicate publication of articles in the Dutch Journal of Medicine in 1996

OBJECTIVE: To determine the number of undisclosed/disclosed duplicate publications of original articles (OA) in the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde (NTvG). DESIGN: Retrospective bibliometric study. METHOD: All biomedical articles published in January 1994-June 1998 and written by the first or second author of the 148 OA published in 1996, were compared with the articles in the NTvG at the editorial office of the NTvG. Resemblances in the objective, study design, study population between the different articles were observed. The researchers assessed whether the same article had been published twice or more and whether this was acceptable or redundant (according to the criteria of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors). RESULTS: In 1996 the NTvG published 30 (20%) OA which were also published elsewhere. In 23 cases (77%) the article was first published in another scientific journal and in 7 cases (23%) the article was published once again after its appearance in the NTvG. In 20 duplicate articles in the NTvG a footnote with a reference to the first publication was present. In 10 duplicate articles no such footnote could be found. In comparison with a similar study of the years 1990-1992 the number of duplicate publications was the same but the fraction of correctly disclosed duplicate publications had risen from 5/23 (22%) to 16/22 (73%) (p < 0.001).     

Perioperative prevention of skin injury: an integrative literature review

Nursing decision making in daily practice needs to be based on scientific knowledge. Evidence-based practice establishes the use of research results in clinical practice, with integrative literature review as one of its resources. This integrative review aimed to find and evaluate the available evidence on efficient nursing care interventions for the prevention of skin injuries in surgical patients, during or as a result of the perioperative period. To select the articles, we used two databases, Cinahl and Medline, resulting in a sample of 14 articles. The results of this analysis indicated that the devices considered most efficient in the prevention of skin injuries were, in decreasing order, the multi-cell pulsating dynamic mattress system, a dry visco-elastic polymer pad and gel cushions.     

The rejection of science frames in the news coverage of the golden rice experiment in Hunan,China

In this article, we examine the ways in which media frames and rhetorical devices in the Chinese media shaped the representation of the genetically modified (GM) golden rice. We draw on a study of Chinese media representations of an experiment designed to test the efficacy of golden rice as a source of Vitamin A using school children in China’s Hunan province as subjects. The study analysed Chinese web news stories about the Hunan experiment posted between 30 August 2012 (when Greenpeace first reported on the issue) and 30 October 2012. This experiment resulted in allegations of breaches in scientific protocols and created a hostile public reaction. The incident fuelled the long-standing debate about the risks and benefits of GM crops in China. In this article, we analyse 25 online news reports, examining the attitudinal orientation of the articles, the readers’ comments on the articles and GM crops, the writing style and rhetorical devices employed, the emotions provoked and the frames manifest and embedded in these articles and comments. We found that although only one-third of the articles manifested an obviously negative attitude towards golden rice and GM foods, their use of strident metaphors and analogies were designed to arouse readers’ fear and concerns about GM crops. In the anti-golden rice articles, we identified conspiracy frames, including the view that the West was using genetic engineering to establish global control over agriculture and that GM products were instruments for genocide. The pro-golden rice articles emphasised the scientific humanitarian progress, but it appears to be less attractive to the readers.     

International research in nursing: thematic and methodological tendencies

It was aimed to analyze the research tendency developed by nursing in international scope. Obtained data of two nursing journals were analyzed from the total of 104 articles, being 58 of the Nursing and Health Sciences and 48 of the Journal of Research in Nursing published in the period of 2005 the 2006. The most investigated thematic areas are: professional formation (19.2%), adult health (11%), collective health (11%) and Care and Autonomy (9.6%). A major tendency of data collection carried outin hospital area (42.3%), teaching (34.7%), and public health (23%). We consider that the articles under analysis reveal tendency for qualitative approach, however, the study reveals the need to expand some areas such as the management.     

Research at the nursing undergraduate level: requirement for completion of the course

This text presents guidelines for the implementation of an Undergraduate Final Year Project (UFYP) in the Nursing undergraduate program from Federal University Center of Alfenas--MG, presenting the hardships and the results of the first four years, using registers found in the proceedings of the Nursing Department and School and the authors' experience as coordinators of this process. There were reports considering some features as facilitators: incentive to multidisciplinary work, increased number of partnerships with professionals in the field; better use of IT resources, of the library and database; increased participation in research events. And, on the difficult side we found: the establishment of norms for the presentation of scientific papers, since at the time the School had no norms for that. We came to the conclusion that, in spite of the difficulties found, research might take place, and it constitutes a dynamic process where there is a learning to learn situation, either for students or for the faculty.