Delay in Seeking Medical Treatment Among Patients With Acute Coronary Syndrome.

Background Various Indian registries have documented a delay of more than five hours for acute coronary syndrome patients from onset of symptoms to reaching thrombolysis-enabled centres. We conducted this study to evaluate the factors responsible for pre-hospital delay in acute coronary syndrome patients. Methods This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in consecutive acute coronary syndrome patients who reported to the tertiary care medical centre in North India. A standardized tool was used to record the demographic data, socioeconomic status and clinical presentation of patients. All factors which led to pre-hospital delay were noted and the appropriate statistical tests were used for analysis. Results A total of 130 patients (males=93, females=37) were included in the study. The median time at which the acute coronary syndrome patients presented to the thrombolysis and percutaneous coronary intervention enabled centre was 490 minutes (range: 20 - 810 minutes) and 710 minutes (range: 45 - 940 minutes) respectively. The various factors responsible for prehospital delay were rural residence (p-value <0.0001), visit to local dispensary (p-value=0.0023), delay in getting transport (p-value=0.03) and misinterpretation of cardiac symptoms (p-value=0.0004). A significant but weak negative correlation was found between per capita income, decision making time and time taken to receive thrombolytic therapy. Out of a total of 83 ST-elevation myocardial infarction patients, only 46 (51.80%) were thrombolysed. Though 69/83 (83.13%) ST-elevation myocardial infarction patients reached thrombolysis enabled centre directly, only nine (10.84%) were thrombolysed at first medical contact; the rest were transferred to the percutaneous coronary intervention-enabled centre without any prior information.  Conclusion Our study concludes that besides socioeconomic and demographic variables, lack of public awareness, well established public transport & health insurance system lead to significant pre-hospital delays and increase the time to revascularization. Besides, judgemental error on the part of medical practitioners in the peripheries also significantly delays thrombolysis in ST-elevation myocardial infarction patients.

A Methodological Study to Develop a Standard Operational Protocol for Nurses on Central Line Catheter Care of Patients in Selected Intensive Care Units.

AIM: This study aims to develop a standard operational protocol (SOP) for central line catheter care for nurses. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A preliminary draft of protocol based on extensive review of the literature was developed. The current practices of the nurses regarding central line catheter care were observed. Focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted with the nurses to identify the problems encountered by them during care of central line. Four rounds of Delphi were conducted to validate the protocol. The protocol was found to be feasible in terms of understanding, clarity and easy implementation after conducting a pilot study. An observation checklist was developed from the final draft of the protocol. The nurses were taught regarding the central line catheter care as per the protocol. 30 nurses were observed during central line catheter care by the researcher. After implementation of the protocol, feedback of the nurses was taken by conducting FGDs. RESULTS: Content validity index of each item in the protocol was acceptable. The overall Cronbach's alpha value of the checklist was 0.75. It was concluded that the checklist is reliable and each item has a contribution in the checklist. CONCLUSION: This protocol addresses interventions to enable staff to provide proper care of the central line catheter to prevent CLABSI.

Adherence to hand hygiene in high-risk units of a tertiary care hospital in India.

To improve the compliance to hand hygiene in our health care workers, 3 hand hygiene awareness weeks have been conducted over the past one-and-a-half years in our hospital. This observational audit conducted from October 2011 to March 2012 was planned to assess the impact of the above awareness drives. Although overall compliance increased significantly in 7 intensive care units from 23.1% to 41.2% (P < .0001), several deficiencies were noticed both in technique used as well as during specific opportunities of hand hygiene.

Skill development regarding use of metered dose inhaler (MDI) amongst school teachers of northern India.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of a booklet based training by a nurse on the development of skills regarding use of metered dose inhaler (MDI) among the teachers of the selected schools of Chandigarh, India. METHODS: The present study was undertaken by randomly selecting government schools of Chandigarh from where 91 school teachers were enrolled. A booklet on asthma management containing information regarding asthma, its triggers, signs and symptoms, treatment, types of inhalers and steps of using MDI with spacer was used for training the subjects. Their knowledge and skills were evaluated through observation checklist. Three return demonstrations were taken from each teacher on three successive days. Main outcome measure was skill development of the teachers in the use of MDI with spacer. Pre and post tests scores were compared by repeated measures ANOVA. RESULTS: Most of the teachers didn't know theoretical or practical aspects of MDI. After training all the teachers performed correctly most of the steps of MDI use. Some teachers performed poorly in giving instruction to breathe in/out slowly and hand washing before/after MDI administration. There was a statistical significant improvement in the performance scores of the teachers after each return demonstration (p < 0.0005). CONCLUSIONS: Training strategy used in the study involving nursing personnel was successful in improving teachers' skills in MDI use for asthma management. More focus should be given on breathe in/out instructions and on hand washing before/after MDI use.