Musculoskeletal disorder risk assessment in home care nurses.

BACKGROUND: Nurses constitute a professional group associated with a high risk of work related musculoskeletal disorders (WRMSDs). Several studies concerning to nurses reveal that they have high prevalence rates of injuries and also of symptoms associated to WRMSDs, mainly in the back. Tasks involving patient handling are those which most often arise associated to back pain. There is a scarcity of studies on WRMSDs in home care nurses. OBJECTIVE: Based on these concerns, the main goals of the present study were to identify the main risk factors of WRMSDs for home care nurses and to perform an objective assessment of the risk for these professionals. METHODS: Two methods to quantify the risk of WRMSDs associated with nursing activities were applied: REBA - Rapid Entire Body Assessment and MAC - Manual Handling Assessment Charts. REBA and MAC methods were applied to patient handling activities and to tasks involving manual material handling, respectively. RESULTS: The results indicate the presence of multiple risk factors and their important contribution to the risk level obtained: generally moderate but considered high for some activities. CONCLUSIONS: Home care nursing has specific characteristics, which clearly influence the adoption of risk behaviors by the nurses.

[How to act in mechanical airway obstruction in adults]. / Como actuar na obstrução mecânica da via aérea no adulto.

The airway obstruction concerns any situation that clogs partially or totally the normal pulmonary ventilation. In this way, it is an absolute emergency which in case of not being solved leads to death in afew minutes. One of the most common airway obstructions is the one that results from an extrinsic cause to the airway--food, blood or vomit. Any solid object can work as a foreign body and cause an airway obstruction--mechanical obstruction. Evaluation and control of the airway are carried out through quick and simple procedures. Initially there is no need for any equipment, being just enough the application of manual techniques for control and disobliteration. Interscapular claps, the Heimlich Manoeuvre and the Thoracic Compressions, are manual techniques used in the disobliteration of the respiratory tract due to a solid body.

[Degree of patient satisfaction regarding the reception given by emergency service nurses]. / Grau de satisfação do utente relativamente ao acolhimento proporcionado pelo enfermeiro no serviço de urgência.

Humanizing in hospitals begins with the patients' reception. Although this "function" should be considered as the duty of every person who works in Hospital, it is fundamental to be assumed as a nursing service, since we are the professional sector which spends more time with the patient. However, the reception may have positive or negative effects on the patient's recovery and on the Health Unit's image. Thus, and having the mission of optimizing the quality of health care, mainly as far as reception is concerned, with this study came out, through which we intend to analyse the patient's level of satisfaction as for the reception offered by the nurse in the Emergency Service of Hospital São Marcos de Braga. It is a study of a descriptive and exploratory nature, within a quantitative approach. To carry out this empirical study, we considered as target population the patients who needed the Emergency Service in the period between January and March of 2002, both male and female (about 50% of each), 50% of rural patients and 50% of urban patients, between the ages of 18 and 65 who stayed in this service from 3 to 12 hours. A random and representative selection of patients was taken, based on the criteria previously mentioned. We obtained a sample of 1440 patients through a random selection of 5 patients in the morning shift, 6 patients in the afternoon shift and 5 patients in the night shift, during the period in which the study was carried out. This study was carried out without the presence of the participants in the survey.