Intensive care unit (ICU) patients experience highly complex health problems, such as pain, agitation, delirium, immobility, and sleep disruption (PADIS), and require professional nursing care. The assessment of PADIS is critically important for ICU nurses, and therefore, PADIS education programs need to be conducted for these nurses to update and improve their caring knowledge, attitudes, and skills. The aims of this study are to bridge this gap by evaluating the effects of PADIS education programs on the knowledge, attitudes, and skills of these nurses, and compare the difference between novice and advanced nurses after receiving the PADIS education programs over a short period of time. In this quasi-experimental study, 112 nurses in ICUs were recruited by researchers and participated in the PADIS education programs. The PADIS education intervention was performed in a teaching hospital in Taipei. A demographic and self-developed PADIS care knowledge questionnaire was used. A baseline (T1) was measured before the interventions, followed by post-test (T2) immediately after the programs, and subsequently a follow-up (T3) test one month later. The results indicated that knowledge and skill scores between novice and advanced nurses varied significantly in T1 but not in T2 and T3. Thus, education programs can significantly assist novice ICU nurses to improve their short-term knowledge, attitudes, and skills, and PADIS education programs are strongly suggested for clinical nursing practice.

(1) Background: Whole person health (WPH) is important among employees in hospitals. It will affect their performance and attitude toward patient care and organization. This project was designed to develop and assess the validity and reliability of utilizing the Whole Person Health Scale for Employees of a Hospital (WPHS-EH) to determine overall employee health. (2) Methods: A mixed-methods focus group and cross-sectional survey was adopted. Employees held six focus groups, with 62 employees from different departments in medical center in Taiwan. After analyzing the interview content, five experts tested its validity, and the 14-item WPHS-EH scale was analyzed. This was followed by an additional 900 participants questionnaire survey, response rate: 94.9%. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s alpha, exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and items analysis were used. Additionally, the scale was implemented to conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) test for validity. (3) Results: Three dimensions were extracted from the questionnaires by EFA: “hospital circumstance and system”, “professional and interpersonal interaction” and “workload and harm”. The Cronbach’s alpha of the WPHS-EH scale was 0.82, while the three sub-dimensions were all significantly correlated with total scores. CFA confirmed the scale construct validity, with a good model fit. (4) Conclusions: The WPHS-EH is a reliable measurement tool to assess the effects of hospitals’ Whole Person Health among employees. The intent of the WPHS-EH was to provide a reliable scale to analyze the work environment for hospital staff and useful information to healthcare administrators interested in improving the staff’s whole person health.

s u m m a r yBackground: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation during hospitalization has a great impact on both economic and medical issues. We sought to investigate: (1) whether different nursing-care behavior would alter the in-hospital resuscitation success rate; and (2) whether the success rate was influenced further by different age groups. Materials and methods: From January to December 2007, a total of 983 cases underwent cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in a tertiary medical center. Of these, the 170 cases resuscitated on the general wards were included in our study, but the 543 events that occurred in the emergency department and the 270 events that occurred in the intensive care units were excluded. Cases were further divided into two groups based on age (O for age greater than or equal to 65 years; Y for age less than 65 years). The baseline hospitalization information and nursing factors in the prediction of immediate outcome after CPR in different age populations were tested by multivariate logistic regression. Results: Of the 983 cases, 170 had detailed records prior to CPR. There was a significant relationship in the success rate of initial resuscitation after CPR between the elderly and young population (p ¼ 0.047). After multivariate adjustments for: signed as "do not resuscitate"; the type of rhythm acquired during resuscitation; the duration of staff visit; and the duration of CPR, we found that a prolonged CPR process was associated with a higher mortality rate in both groups (adjusted OR: 0.241, p ¼ 0.001 in the O group vs. 0.220, p ¼ 0.001 in the Y group). A longer interval between medical staffs' visits before CPR was associated with higher mortality in the O group (adjusted OR: e0.048, p ¼ 0.015) as compared with the Y group. Conclusion: Although the initial resuscitation success rate was not affected by age, a longer time interval between the last medical staffs' visit and the onset of resuscitation did result in a worse success rate in elderly patients. Our data suggest that more frequent staff visits to the elderly population during hospitalization could alter initial resuscitation results.