Background: Pressure ulcers (PU) remain a serious complication of immobile patients and a burden for healthcare professionals. The incidence and prevalence remain alarming. Knowledge and attitudes of nurses play a fundamental role in prevention. The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge and attitudes of nurses towards the prevention of PU in selected Slovak hospitals and find relationships and differences among selected variables. Methods: A quantitative exploratory cross-sectional design was chosen. Validated instruments were used. From the 460 randomly selected nurses, 225 (49%) participated in this research. Results: Results showed insufficient knowledge (45.5%) and attitudes (67.9%) of nurses towards PU prevention. There was a significant positive correlation found between the knowledge and attitudes (ρ = 0.300; p = 0.000). Nurses´ knowledge was significantly different within the level of education (p = 0.031) and work department (p = 0.048). Conclusions: Results showed insufficiencies in the knowledge and attitudes of nurses towards PU prevention. Therefore, it is essential to focus on general education and continuing education and practice of nurses. Further development of educational programs and frequent measurement of these two parameters can lead to a significant improvement in the quality of care provided.

Aim: To analyse the influence of parents´ belief in nutrition myths on the frequency of their serving certain foods to their children. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: Survey carried out with 297 respondentsparents of children aged 5-18 years. The data collection took place between September 2013 and December 2014. The questionnaire focussed on 14 nutrition myths related to selected foods (milk, dairy products, meat, offal, fruit, vegetables, eggs, fish, legumes, soya, and flour dishes). At the same time, the parents reported the frequency of their serving the monitored foods to their children. In the statistical analysis, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient was used. Results: For nine nutrition myths we found significant negative coefficients between a certain nutrition myth and the frequency of the serving of the food. The nutrition myths related to the consumption of fish (r =-0.328), eggs (r =-0.203), soya (r =-0.301;-0.290), offal (r =-0.155), meat (r =-0.128), milk (r =-0.272;-0.254), and fruit/vegetables (r =-0.104). Conclusion: The belief in nutrition myths appears to be a determinant modifying parental behaviour and subsequently the quality of children's diets.

Dying and death are parts of the life and are unique and personal to everyone. People are afraid of death, often due the fear of the unknown, suffering and loss of the quality of life. Death as such is affecting seniors most, which is, of course; relating to the life cycle. With ageing people are clearly aware of the irreversibility of this cycle and especially in cases, when decreasing of quality of their lives is linked with hospitalization or other forms of social care, which are requiring them to leave their home and social environment. Palliative care is applied in the terminal stages of the disease in present time and the process of dying is an integral part of nursing care. Seniors assess life via the quality of life. This quality of life is judged on its own values, which are in different order for everyone: health, social networking, free time activities or financial situation. Hospitalization of the senior often leads to social isolation, which in many cases ends with social death, and it usually comes much earlier than biological death. The aim of the paper is to draw the attention of the professional and general public to the phenomenon of social isolation and social death of seniors, which in our society, and not only in Slovakia, is beginning to emerge as a more and more current issue.

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Introduction: Fruit plays an important role in the prevention of various diseases. Eating fruit in Slovak children is not entirely adequate. Nutrition programs include the possibility of improving children's eating habits. Study design: Non-randomized controlled trial. Aim: To create a nutrition education program, implement it and analyze its effectiveness on children's eating habits. Methodology: The school nutrition program was focused on fruit and fruit intake for health. We assessed the knowledge level of fruit, fruit preference and fruit intake in an intervention and control group. Before the nutrition program children reported their home availability of fruit, and fruit model (parent/teacher/friend as a model of fruit intake). We used Chi-square test, t-test, and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Sample: The research enrolled 136 children aged 8-10 years (M = 8.67, SD = 0.55). The school nutrition program has been accomplished in 68 children (intervention group), the control group consisted of 68 children. Results: We found a higher level of knowledge (p = 0.000) and higher fruit preference (p = 0.001) in the intervention group. The fruit intake in the intervention and control group was similar (M = 7.51 vs. M = 6.74, p = 0.059). There is not a significant effect of the nutrition program on the frequency of eating fruits in children after controlling for the effect of covariate-"fruit availability" [F(1.133) = 3.254, p = 0.074], but the program has a significant effect on the frequency of fruit eating in children after controlling for the covariate-"parent as a fruit model" [F(1.133) = 5.033, p = 0.027] and "teacher as a fruit model" [F(1.133) = 4.071, p = 0.046]. Conclusion: Parents and teachers play an important role in supporting the effectiveness of a nutrition program and the modification of children eating habits. S Ú h R N Úvod: Ovocie zohráva dôležitú úlohu v prevencii rôznych ochorení. Konzumácia ovocia u slovenských detí nie je úplne adekvátna. Nutričné programy predstavujú možnosť podpory stravovacích návykov u detí.