A study for the evaluation of a safety education program me for nursing students: discussions using the QSEN safety competencies.

BACKGROUND: To respond to calls for improvements in nursing education in Japan, a group of faculties of a baccalaureate nursing programme has made an initial attempt to incorporate quality and safety education for nurses safety competency into three related courses, two sophomore level courses and one senior level course. AIMS: To evaluate the learning experiences in a senior level course on medical safety in order to identify learning outcomes in terms of areas of strengths and areas for further improvements of the course and a system-wide implementation of quality and safety education for nurses competencies in the future. METHODS: Fourteen students who met the criteria had volunteered to participate in one of the two 40-minute focus group interviews. During the interviews, participants were asked questions as to what they have learned and how they may use that knowledge in the future. The sessions were tape recorded, the data were transcribed and analysed using the content analysis method according to Berelson. RESULTS: Eight categories of learning related to medical safety were identified, including awareness of own risks for errors and plans to reduce such risks. These categories of learning were thought to have achieved the level equal to 75% of quality and safety education for nurses knowledge, skills and attitudes items. CONCLUSIONS: The current content and methods for this course identified strengths to be continued, with some areas of improvement for the future for further adoption of quality and safety education for nurses competencies into the entire curriculum.

[Two cases of Mycoplasma pneumoniae bronchopneumonia diagnosed with LAMP (loop-mediated isothermal amplification) as a rapid assay].

Mycoplasma pneumoniae is one of the common pathogens of the community-acquired pneumonia in adults and children. Macrolide antibiotics are considered to be the first-choice drug for M. pneumoniae infections. However, macrolide-resistant M. pneumoniae was first detected from Japanese pediatric patients in 2000,and it has been increasing over the past decade. On the other hand, the Immunocard Mycoplasma IgM test is widely used as a rapid and easy diagnostic method for M. pneumoniae pneumonia, but false-positive or false-negative cases have been reported in adults. Therefore new methods have been developed recently. Using the LAMP assay, the results are available rapidly and accurately. We report herein on two cases of M. pneumoniae bronchopneumonia in which the LAMP assay was useful in the diagnosis and treatment.

[Antimicrobial susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from urine at one hospital to mainly carbapenem and fluoroquinolone drugs].

We tested the drug susceptibility to 8 anti-pseudomonal agents of 97 strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from urine between January 1998 and May 2004. The results were as follows. 1. Antimicrobial activity was, in order of superiority to biapenem (BIPM), meropenem (MEPM), ciprofloxacin (CPFX), imipenem (IPM), pazufloxacin (PZFX), amikacin (AMK), ceftazidime (CAZ), piperacillin (PIPC). 2. The resistance rate (intermediate+resistance) to carbapenem drugs was 10.3% for BIPM and MEPM, and 13.4% for IPM. Many of the IPM-resistant strains showed crossover resistance with BIPM and MEPM. 3. The resistance rate (intermediate+resistance) to fluoroquinolone drugs was 23.7% for CPFX and 20.6% for PZFX. 4. One strain showed simultaneous resistance to IPM = 16 microg/mL, CPFX = 4 microg/mL, and AMK = 32 microg/mL, and produced IMP-1 metallo-beta-lactamase. Susceptibility of P. aeruginosa isolated from urine developed resistance to fluoroquinolone drugs. It is important to promote appropriate use of antimicrobial agents and continue to survey emerging resistance in the clinical isolates.