Jorjani Biomedicine Journal

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Background and objective:

In the nursing profession, there are numerous factors which altogether cause occupational stress and as a result occupational exhaustion in nurses and decrease the quality of patient care. Regarding the importance of this issue which influences the health indices of the society, this study investigates the effect of progressive muscle relaxation on the occupational stress of nurses.

Materials and Methods:

This semi-experimental and before-after study was conducted using progressive muscle relaxation intervention on 33 nurses in special treatment (ICU and CCU) and emergency units through simple sampling in Yazd in 2012. To assess occupational stress,Toft-Anderson questionnaire was used. The procedure of applying relaxation in a practical way was given to nurses in pamphlets and questionnaires were filled before and two weeks after the intervention. Analysis was done using SPSS.16 software and T-test.

Results:

The average total score of stress in nurses before and after the intervention was determined as – 28.12±43.74 and 52.12±04.72 respectively and this difference was not statistically significant (39.0>p). However, in the dimensions of nurses’ workload (/0>p 03 and t=2.27) and patients’ suffering and death, these scores were significantly different (0001.0>p and t=3.94).

Conclusion:

This study showed that applying progressive muscle relaxation technique as a method of emotion-focused coping cannot be effective in the reduction of occupational stress in nurses.

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Background & Objective: Myocardial infarction is one of the most common coronary artery diseases. One of the educational needs of patients, is how to perform sexual activities. Unfortunately, this issue is not being taught to patients, leading to problems in patients and their partners. This study was aimed to determine the effect of sex education on patients and their spouses› satisfaction after myocardial infarction. Method: This Quasi-experimental, non-randomized study was performed on 60 patients with myocardial infarction and their spouses in the city of Yazd whom were divided into two groups of experimental and control (60 in each group),in the year 1392. The main method of this study was the education and preparation of nurses and then educating patients by trained nurses and to assess sexual satisfaction based on the standard Larson›s questionnaire. The data were then statistically analyzed using SPSS version 16 using paired, independent t-test. Results: The average sexual satisfaction of patients in the experimental group before the intervention was 81.93 ± 12.47 and after the intervention 82.50 ± 12.57 While in the control group before the intervention the average satisfaction was 83.10 ± 17.36 and after 6 weeks 75.30 ± 15.42. Also the mean sexual satisfaction of partners in the test group before and after the intervention was 81.30 ± 12.47 and 82.07 ± 12.28 respectively. In the control group before the intervention, the average score was 82.50 ± 17.21 and after intervention it was 74.57 ± 15.30. There was significant difference between patients and spouses› sexual satisfaction scores in the experimental and control groups before and after the intervention (P=0.001). Conclusion: Sex education increased the sexual satisfaction among the tested group. Therefore, it is suggested to include programs in order to prepare nurses in terms of sex education of patients and their spouses in cardiac intensive wards.

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Background & Objectives: Defect in Immune responses, such as immunosuppression is one of the major causes of AML pathogenesis and progression which could be targeted for immunotherapy of these patients. CD200 and IDO are immunoregulatory factors which are overexpressed in some solid tumors and hematological malignancies. Distinct researches have shown that CD200 and IDO expressions are associated with AML progression. In the current study, we simultaneously examined the expression of these molecules, as the two important factors including in immunosuppression, in the newly diagnosed and relapse AML patients to investigate their correlation with each other.

Methods: In this study, 48 Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells (PBMCs) samples of newly diagnosed and relapsed AML patients were tested and also 32 PBMCs of normal subjects were employed as normal controls. CD200 expression level was examined on the cells by Flowcytometry and quantitative real time RT-PCR was used to determine the IDO-1 gene expression. Finally data were analyzed statistically by Spss 17 software.

Results: Our data showed that CD200 (P=0.02) and IDO-1 (P=0.44) were overexpressed in AML samples especially in relapsed patients. Comparison between FAB AML subgroups demonstrated no statistical differences regarding CD200 level but expression of IDO-1 was slightly increased only in M4 subgroup in comparison to M3 (P=0.01). Correlation analyses showed strong association between the expressions of CD200 and IDO-1 in all patients particularly in relapsed AML, whereas no significant correlation was found in normal subjects.  

Conclusion: According to the role and overexpression of CD200 and IDO-1 in AML patients and also their two-way correlation with T-reg lymphocytes in disease induction and progression, simultaneous assessment of these parameters are so valuable for more exact prognosis detection. Also inhibition of all these immunoregulatory pathways could be so useful for immunotherapy outcome, especially in relapsed AML.