Oct 22nd, 2021 - Nurses experiencing burnout were twice as likely to have thoughts of suicide, and those with symptoms of depression were 11 times as likely to experience suicidal thoughts, a survey study found. Among more than 7,000 nurses surveyed from November to December 2017, a total of 5.5% experienced suicidal ideation, which is higher than rates of suicidal thoughts in the general population (4.3%), rep...

Oct 21st, 2021 - Note that some links may require registration or subscription. Pfizer announced the first data from its phase III COVID-19 booster trial involving 10,000 individuals ages 16 and up. The study showed 95.6% efficacy (95% CI 89.3-98.6) for those who received a booster shot 6 months following their primary series: with five cases in the boosted group versus 109 in the non-boosted group. After a flu...

Oct 15th, 2021 - More than half of nurses working in critical care said they were "not emotionally healthy," according to the latest COVID-19 survey on mental health and wellness conducted by the American Nurses Foundation and shared with MedPage Today. Of 9,572 nurses surveyed in the third of a series of pandemic-related polls, 75% of nurses across all roles said they felt "stressed," and 10% said they felt "w...

Oct 14th, 2021 - Older adults who received a low-dose of intravenous dexmedetomidine (Precedex) while undergoing abdominal surgery saw a quicker return to normal gastrointestinal function and shorter hospital stays, a randomized trial conducted in China found. The study met its primary endpoint, with those administered intraoperative dexmedetomidine during anesthesia reporting a shorter time to first flatus ver...

Oct 14th, 2021 - Timely CPR on cardiac arrest patients with known or suspected COVID-19 should take precedence over resuscitators donning personal protective equipment (PPE), the American Heart Association (AHA) outlined in a guidance update. In resuscitation of adults and children, the healthcare provider is now instructed to give rapid chest compressions and to defibrillate as soon as possible without delay f...

Oct 8th, 2021 - High coffee consumption was linked to a lower risk for elevated liver stiffness, though no such association was seen with steatosis, researchers found in a cross-sectional study. In a dietary analysis involving over 4,500 adults, drinking more than 3 cups of coffee (versus none) was associated with a 0.9 kPa reduction (95% CI -1.6 to -0.1, P=0.03) and with a reduced odds of liver stiffness (≥9....

Sep 29th, 2021 - A mother brings her daughter to the emergency department (ED) and says, "We need help. [My daughter] wants to kill herself." Before the visit, the mother sought a therapist for her child but wound up on a waitlist. The scenario plays out every single day in U.S. EDs, according to Kathleen Kiley, RN, senior staff nurse and clinical educator for emergency nursing at Boston Children's Hospital, wh...

Sep 16th, 2021 - While offering similar clinical benefits at 1 year, a medium-weight polypropylene mesh was no better for pain control than a heavy-weight mesh in patients who underwent open retromuscular ventral hernia repair, a randomized multicenter trial showed. In fact, for the more than 300 patients in the trial, the two meshes resulted in identical pain scores -- on the NIH's Patient-Reported Outcomes Me...

Sep 15th, 2021 - For women in labor, epidural anesthesia offers relief from some of the worst pain that anyone can experience. But could it pose a risk for the baby? Yes, said Chinese researchers who published a matched-cohort study in JAMA Network Open. Infections among newborns occurred at a rate of 4.4% when mothers received epidurals, versus 1.8% without the treatment (risk difference 2.6 percentage points,...

Sep 14th, 2021 - The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) reaffirmed its 2014 guidance on recommending chlamydia and gonorrhea screening in all sexually active women ages 24 and younger, and for older women at increased risk for infection, regardless of pregnancy status (B rating). No luck for asymptomatic men, however, as there remain insufficient data on the benefits and harms of screening (I rating)....

Aug 19th, 2021 - It’s imperative to stay diligent of the immune-related adverse events (AEs) that patients with cancer may experience from checkpoint inhibitors and other immunotherapy agents, especially with regards to treatment continuation and keeping hospitalizations low, according to Grace Cherry, RN, MS, NP, of the melanoma program at University of California Los Angeles. If you're an oncology nurse, y...

Aug 18th, 2021 - Student nurse anesthetists reported that "bullying and incivility" by healthcare providers in a clinical setting threw them off their educational game, according to findings presented at the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) congress. A phenomenological study of student registered nursing anesthetists (SRNAs) included reports of supervisors and teachers gossiping about the stude...

Aug 16th, 2021 - No significant increased risk of Bell's palsy was seen after the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine, but risk did increase for people who received the CoronaVac (Sinovac Biotech) shot, a vaccine that uses an inactivated virus, an analysis in Hong Kong showed. Compared with the background population, the age-standardized difference for Bell's palsy incidence was 41.5 (95% CI 11.7-71.4) per 100,000 per...

Aug 13th, 2021 - Frontline physicians, nurses, and therapists working with COVID-19 patients had fewer emotional exhaustion symptoms when they were treated with cannabidiol (CBD), the BONSAI randomized clinical trial showed. Scores on the emotional exhaustion subscale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory substantially decreased at days 14, 21, and 28 among 120 healthcare workers randomized to either CBD 300 mg plus...

Aug 12th, 2021 - The way to improve diversity in nursing is to expand opportunities for leadership, mentorship, and outreach, and to rethink admissions policies, said nurses and academicians during a webinar hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) on Wednesday. The panel discussion was part of a four-part series tied to the release of NASEM's consensus study, "The Future ...

Aug 12th, 2021 - Regular use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) was significantly associated with a greater risk for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and its subtypes, a pooled analysis of three observational studies found. In examining the Nurses' Health studies and U.K. Biobank cohort, multivariate analyses showed that individuals taking PPIs regularly were at increased risk for IBD compared with non-regular PP...

Aug 10th, 2021 - Certain barriers to colonoscopy completion among patients with abnormal fecal immunochemical test (FIT) results may be modifiable, a survey of healthcare workers at a safety net health system suggested. In a qualitative study involving primary care physicians and staff, frequently cited obstacles to colonoscopy completion after an abnormal FIT included social determinants of health, organizatio...

Aug 9th, 2021 - Understanding the functionality and naming convention of biosimilars vs their biologic counterparts are important concepts to utilizing these agents in oncology, according to a presentation given by Teresa Knoop, MSN, RN, AOCN, during the 5th Annual School of Nursing OncologyTM Meeting. Although the first biosimilar for the treatment of multiple cancers was not approved until 2017, oncology ...

Aug 9th, 2021 - Two widely used rapid screening tests for COVID-19, which check for SARS-CoV-2 antigens, missed a significant fraction of infected individuals when used in a real-world setting, researchers reported. Among 2,215 "all-comers" tested at a German diagnostics lab, with 338 ultimately showing positive results with PCR testing, Roche's SD Biosensor and Abbott's Panbio rapid antigen tests showed overa...

Aug 6th, 2021 - Note that some links may require registration or subscription. Novavax will delay submitting its COVID-19 vaccine to the FDA for emergency use authorization, while the U.S. pauses funding for production of the company's shot. (CNBC, New York Times) U.S. vaccinations increased by 864,000 on Wednesday, the highest single-day total since July 3, according to the White House. (CNN) FDA may make COV...