Aim. To determine the opinions of II and III stage breast cancer patients on the non-pharmacological pain-relief methods. Methods. The research was performed from November 2019 to January 2020 in the Oncology and Hematology department of Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas Clinics. Patients completed a survey of 25 questions. 33 surveys were analysed. Statistical data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 and Microsoft Excel 2016 software packages. Results. Almost half of the survey participants were unaware of the pain-relief methods, had not tried any of physical pain-relief methods and did not know or have an opinion about their effectiveness. Half of the survey participants thought that music, spiritual and cognitive behavioral therapies can relieve the pain. Also, more than half of the participants had not tried any psychological pain-relief methods and did not know or have an opinion about their effectiveness. More than half of the participants did not know if it is possible to reduce pain using medical marijuana, virtual reality glasses and hypnosis.

To assess intensive care unit nurse’s attitude towards patient safety dimensions. Methods. The study was conducted at two hospitals, from 2022 April till June in Intensive Care Units. 156 nurses participated in the study. The questionnaire was made by authors according to the „Manchester Patient Safety Framework. Acute” literature. Results. Nurses with a university education agreed more often than those with a non-university education that their department takes a responsible approach to patient safety issues (respectively, n=52; 96.3% and n=93; 95.9%), p=0.05, that departments have a correct understanding of why it is necessary to report adverse patient safety events (respectively, n=51; 80.0% and n=80; 51.0%), p=0.04. Non-university-educated nurses indicated more often than university-educated nurses that their department constantly assesses risks related to patient safety and looks for ways to improve quality (respectively, n=92; 93.9% n=43; 79.6%), p=0.02 that adverse patient safety events are not seen as an opportunity to blame the nurse or other staff (respectively, n=62; 64.6% and n=25; 46.3%,), p=0.04. Nurses with a non-university education more often agreed that there is no prevailing culture of blame in the department (respectively, n=65; 67.7% n=25; 46.3%), p=0.02, more often report potential adverse events (respectively, n =26; 48.1% and n=58, 61.1%), p=0.01, than nurses with university education. Conclusions. Critical care and intensive care nurses pay sufficient attention to patient safety, system error and individual responsibility, and adverse event recording and best practice dimensions. However, in the opinion of university-educated nurses, risks related to patient safety are still not sufficiently assessed in the workplace and ways to improve quality are sought, there is a lack of safety culture.