Nursing work and its meaning to female professionals

This is a qualitative study that used Life History method aiming to describe the woman-mother-nursing laborer's daily routine and to analyze the woman-mother-nursing laborer's perception of their daily routine, based on their life history. Twenty-five nursing professionals of a public general hospital in Rio de Janeiro, who had children, were interviewed. The report analysis revealed that these laborers see nurses as multivalent professionals, who are involved in the whole hospital organization dynamics, due to lack of delimitation of the nursing actions. The precariousness of the conditions in which the population of this public institution is assisted, manifested by resources insufficiency directly interferes in the nursing activity.     

Under surveillance

This article outlines the importance of surveillance of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs), and argues for extension of mandatory surveillance.     

Facilitating client-centred practice: insights from clients

BACKGROUND: This paper adds to the established importance of client-centred practice in mental health programs by reporting on the outcome of client interviews in one community setting in England. PURPOSE: The purpose of these interviews was to determine the opportunities for, and barriers to, the application of a definition of client-centred practice. METHODS: Purposive sampling was used to obtain 9 clients who participated in structured interviews. A combination of methods, including template analysis and the editing approach, were employed to determine themes and sub themes that are presented within the context of the clients'reasons for attending these programs. RESULTS: These themes included initiating client-centred practice with the sub themes of providing information to enable choice, participate in negotiating goals, overcoming fear and the severity of illness. Other themes related to the therapist's response to the client's illness and the client's knowledge about client-centred practice. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: It was clear from these interviews that client-centred practice was important to this group of clients and there were both opportunities and barriers to be considered by therapists.     

Genetic susceptibility to tardive dyskinesia in chronic schizophrenia subjects: III. Lack of association of CYP3A4 and CYP2D6 gene polymorphisms

Recent studies of the association between the metabotropic glutamate receptor 3 gene (GRM3) and schizophrenia have produced conflicting results, although GRM3 is a promising candidate gene. Fujii et al. found a single nuclear polymorphism (SNP) for within this gene, rs1468412 to have a positive association to schizophrenia in Japanese patients. To investigate this further, we genotyped 7 SNPs around GRM3 including rs1468412, in 752 Chinese patients with schizophrenia and 752 controls using Taqman technology. We did not detect any association between rs1468412 and schizophrenia, however we found differences in the allele frequency distribution of SNP rs2299225 (p=0.0297, odds ration [OR]=1.44, 95% confidence interval 1.05-1.99) between cases and controls. Moreover, the overall frequency of haplotypes constructed from three SNPs including rs2299225 showed significant differences between cases and controls (p=0.0017). Our results partially support the previous studies in other ethnic groups and indicate that the GRM3 gene may play an important role in the etiology of schizophrenia in the Han Chinese.