Social media use and ethics violations: Nurses' responses to hypothetical cases

AIM

This study aimed to evaluate nurses' ability to evaluate ethical violations to hypothetical case studies involving social media use.

BACKGROUND

Inappropriate use of social media necessitates health institutes, academic institutes, nurses and educators to consider occupational ethical principles while creating a  policy and guide on the usage of social media.

METHOD

The data were collected confidentially from the nurses working at a university hospital in Turkey, using the Personal Information Form and the Ethic Case Form. The study was carried out using descriptive and inferential analysis.

FINDINGS

Analysis of the data showed that the majority of the nurses had received training in ethics, used WhatsApp social media application most often, spent less than an hour a day on social media platforms and used social media to follow daily posts. Analyses of the ethical case evaluations showed that nurses' level of education and ethics training status was influential on their Case 1 evaluations and the length of time they had worked was effective in Case 2 evaluations. When Case 3 evaluations of nurses were analysed according to ethics training, statistically significant differences were found. The analyses of the Case 4 and Case 5 evaluations showed that no statistically significant differences were found according to nurses' descriptive characteristics.

CONCLUSION

The study determined that education level, ethical training status, the source of ethics training and the duration of their work in the profession were effective regarding the case evaluation of the nurses.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING AND HEALTH POLICY

Nursing policymakers, educators, administrators and clinicians need to cooperate in the development of ethical awareness and creation of solutions to violations, the preparation of guidelines for social media use.

Web-based standardized patient simulation for taking anamnesis: an approach in nursing education during the pandemic

BACKGROUND

To address the challenges in nursing education brought about by the pandemic, this study aimed to evaluate the use of a web-based standardized patient practice in the development of nursing students' anamnesis taking skills and their views about its application.

METHOD

We conducted a descriptive intervention study with 39 s-year nursing students. The students completed anamnesis using the standardized patient practice in line with a scenario with real standardized patients in a web-based environment with audio and video.

RESULTS

The total scores of students' anamnesis skills were low. The agreement between the total scores, scores obtained from the health patterns, and each item in the control list was statistically significant (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

Web-based standardized patient practice is an alternative for clinical practice facilitating the gaining of competencies in making holistic nursing diagnoses under conditions that limit face-to-face interactions, such as pandemics.

The effect of cold application on pain in patients with chest tubes before deep breathing and coughing exercises: A randomized controlled study

BACKGROUND

Pain control is very important to ensure the comfort of patients and increase their quality of life.

OBJECTIVES

The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to examine the effects of cold therapy in patients with chest tube before deep breathing and coughing exercises.

METHODS

The study participants were patients with chest tubes, who were treated at a training and research hospital in Turkey between May 2, 2017, and October 24, 2019. Seventy patients participated in the study in accordance with the inclusion criteria. The intervention group, patient identification form, and visual analogue scale were used to collect data. Cold therapy was applied for the intervention group before deep breathing and coughing exercises, and not for the control group.

RESULTS

The pain rates of the intervention group participants were lower (3.31) after the deep breathing and coughing exercises, than the rates (4.24) before the exercises (p<0.01). The pain rate (5.29) among the control group participants after the deep breathing and coughing exercises was significantly higher than those before (3.47) the exercises (p<0.01).

CONCLUSIONS

The study revealed that cold therapy before deep breathing and coughing exercises effectively relieves pain in patients with chest tubes.