ABSTRACT
These nurses serve millions of youths all year round.
Subject(s)
Community Health Nursing , Adolescent , HumansABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in the United States in the spring and summer of 2020, many organizations serving children and youth immediately faced significant operational and healthcare challenges. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance for the safe operation of youth programmes emphasized the importance of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), yet few studies have examined NPI usage in summer programmes such as camps. METHOD: This sequential explanatory mixed-methods study explored the utilization of NPIs among camp healthcare providers who completed an online questionnaire followed by one-on-one interviews. RESULTS: The study findings indicated that camps consistently used a core set of NPIs to maintain and protect the health of camp participants, including screening, cohorting, hand hygiene, sanitizing practices, ventilation and physical distancing. The study findings further identified specific practices of camp healthcare providers that made NPI utilization possible, as exemplified in the emergent themes of wellness promotion; health awareness and modelling; and camp health service mobilization. CONCLUSION: NPI usage benchmarks from this study, as well as effective practices for NPI utilization, can inform the application of NPIs and other health-promoting practices across diverse formal and informal youth settings.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Camping , Adolescent , COVID-19/epidemiology , COVID-19/prevention & control , Child , Delivery of Health Care , Humans , Pandemics/prevention & control , Physical Distancing , United States/epidemiologyABSTRACT
Little is known about the association between central catheter needleless connectors and bacteremia. In a cohort study on 91 patients, central catheter blood samples were collected using 3 methods--old cap (the existing cap), new cap (after replacing the old cap with a new sterile cap), and peripheral methods--from each patient and their correlation was examined. The old cap method identified 36 positive bacteremia cases. However, only 17 cases were verified by the new cap method, yielding a positive predictive value of 47.2% (17/36). The 19 false-positive cases indicated old cap contamination. This study recommends that changing the needleless cap before drawing blood samples would be an ideal practice for obtaining more specific and reliable results in diagnosing bacteremia.