Pediatric Nurses' Perceived Competencies toward Palliative Care for Terminally Ill Children.

INTRODUCTION: Paediatric palliative care involves the physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being of terminally ill children and their families. Competency in palliative care centred on personal traits and attributes, key abilities to satisfy professional duty through practise, and knowledge of palliative care. OBJECTIVE: Is to identify paediatric nurses' perceived Competencies toward Palliative Care for Terminally Ill Children. METHOD: Used was a descriptive research design. The sample included 72 nurses who worked at neonatal, pediatric intensive care units ( NICU, PICU) in four hospitals affiliated to Universal Health Insurance (UHI) in Port Said City, namely ( El Nasr, El Salam, El Hayah, and pain outpatient clinic at El Tadamon) hospital. The structured questionnaire and the nursing palliative care quiz are the first tools used to evaluate sociodemographic characteristics. Data were gathered using a second tool, the Nurses' Core Competencies in Palliative Care questionnaire. RESULTS: Based on the study, 56.9% of nurses had adequate knowledge, and 47.2% of paediatric nurses agreed that they had some extendable palliative care competences.It can be summarized  that more than sighlty half of the studied sample have adequate knowledge while the rest of the studied sample have inadequate knowledge,with statistically significant relationship between nurses' overall perceived competence and overall knowledge. CONCLUSION: The relationship between nurses' overall perceived competence and overall knowledge was very statistically significant. The Recommendation study's findings highlight the urgent need of creating an evidence-based programme for competency training in palliative care, which should be available in every hospital and adhered to all paediatric nurses.

Molecular Screening for Malaria among Blood Donors in a WHO Claimed Region of Egypt, Fayoum Governorate.

BACKGROUND: Transfusion-transmitted malaria is undoubtedly a potential health hazard for blood recipients. Egypt is still on the prevention of reintroduction phase of malaria control program. Fayoum Governorate is considered one of the high-risk foci in Egypt due to its geology. However, no studies have been reported to evaluate the current status of subclinical Plasmodium infection based on sensitive molecular techniques. Moreover, screening of malaria is not listed within screening protocols of blood-borne pathogens in Fayoum blood banks. OBJECTIVE: To assess the current prevalence of subclinical Plasmodium infection among blood donors of Fayoum inhabitants for transfusion biosafety. To predict any possibility of the reemergence of malaria in the governorate and the effectiveness of malaria control measures. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 400 apparently healthy blood-donors in blood transfusion center of Fayoum University hospital from Jun 2012 to Jan 2013. Conventional PCR was used to detect the 18 S ssrRNA Plasmodium gene. RESULTS: All Fayoum inhabitants' blood donors' samples were negative for Plasmodium infection. CONCLUSIONS: Current applied control, and preventive measures are valid in the context of blood transfusion biosafety in Fayoum blood banks and, therefore, the implementation of a routine malaria screening test in Fayoum blood banks is not merited at this time.