Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of St Andrews, October 2008.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2006. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 79 p. : ill. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-40).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 174 p. : ill. (some col.). Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 140-150).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2006. / Title from title screen (viewed Aug. 29, 2007). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine. Includes tables and questionnaires. Includes bibliography. Also issued in print.

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global public health problem and occurs in all countries including Hong Kong. Women are significantly more likely to report being victimized by intimate partner than men. IPV can result in high personal and social costs in terms of personal health consequences, burden on the medical care and loss productivity for the society. Early and effective interventions for women survivors of IPV are utmost importance. Increasing the safety behaviours education to abused women is one of the aims of advocacy interventions that may prevent further abuse and increase the safety and well-being of those women. It is crucial for nurses to assess the effectiveness of the advocacy intervention in order to apply the best evidence into practice in the local settings. However, there are no specific interventions or guidelines for women survivors of IPV are available in Hong Kong local healthcare system including the STD clinics or the Social Hygiene Clinics. In this dissertation, a translational nursing research related to an effective advocacy intervention for women survivors of IPV is described. The purposes of this study are (1) to conduct a systematic literature review on interventions to increase safety behaviours for women survivors of IPV; (2) to summarize and synthesize the data from the identified literatures; (3) to assess the implementation potential of the proposed innovation on advocacy intervention; (4) to develop an evidence-based practice guideline; (5) to develop an implementation plan; and (6) to develop an evaluation plan to assess the effectiveness of the proposed evidence-based guideline. A systematic literature search was conducted and a total of nine studies were identified in the review. The level of evidence and critical appraisal of each selected study was criticized by using the grading system of Scottish Intercollegiate Guideline Network (SIGN). After the integrative review, the implementation potential of the proposed innovation on advocacy intervention for women survivors of IPV was assessed in terms of different aspects, including target audience and setting, transferability, feasibility and cost-benefit ratio. Then an evidence-based guideline was developed based on the level of evidence with grades of recommendation stated. For the implementation plan was divided into two parts, the communication plan and the pilot study plan. After communicating with the different identified stakeholders and providing proper training programme to the innovators, a pilot study test was carried out for concrete information on the feasibility of the proposed innovation. Finally, an evaluation plan was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed innovation. The aim of this dissertation is to increase the safety behaviours of the target population and to reduce further abuse. With the implementation of the evidence-based advocacy intervention, the women client’s knowledge on safety-promoting behaviours should be improved significantly thus to improve their health and also to increase their safety. / published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

Background Nosocomial infection is a crucial problem and cause of morbidity and mortality especially in cardiac surgery settings. The risk of acquiring such infection is even higher because cardiac surgery patients require intensive care postoperatively. The phenomenon is evidenced by longer length of hospital stay and increased cost of care. Pneumonia and surgical site infections were ranked among the top three most common hospital acquired infections. The usual practice for mouth care is diluted thymol gargle solution for intubated patients after cardiac surgery in Hong Kong. No local studies examine the effect of oronasopharyngeal care on minimizing such infections. An evidence based guideline in oral and nasopharyngeal nursing care is necessary to implement in hospitals for improving patient surgical outcome. Objective To develop an evidence based practice guideline for pre- and postoperative oronasopharyngeal care of in-patients undergoing cardiac surgery with implementation planning and discussion on evaluation. Methods The most recent publications were searched till August 2011. Randomized controlled trials with oropharyngeal and/ or nasopharyngeal care with outcome measures on surgical site infection and/ or nosocomial pneumonia were reviewed. Essential data were extracted with quality assessed methodologically. Results Six randomized controlled trials comparing oropharyngeal and/ or nasopharyngeal care intervention with usual care were reviewed. The studies mostly included middle-aged male patients undergoing cardiac surgery. The results showed positively of interventions on nosocomial pneumonia and surgical site infection when compared with usual care. In view of quality assessments and statistically significant findings, the proposed change that could improve surgical outcome of patients is to use chlorhexidine gluconate on oronasopharyngeal care in the guideline. It mainly carries out in in-hospital settings both by patients with education from nurses preoperatively, and by nurses postoperatively. Conclusion Reviewed evidence shown that the oronasopharyngeal care interventions help effectively on minimizing the occurrence of nosocomial pneumonia and surgical site infections for patients undergoing heart surgery. It could be potentially adopted for nurses working in cardiac surgical ward and cardiac intensive care unit. / published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing