Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Sudanese Health and hygiene'

The purpose of this study is to describe South Sudanese refugee women's perceptions of access to, use of, and their culture's influence on their access to and use of healthcare after resettling in the United States.

Background: The prolonged civil-war and famine in the African nation of Sudan has displaced millions of women and children over the last two decades. Refugee women who are resettled to the United States must make adjustments to learn how to live in American society and culture. There is little known about healthcare access and use by South Sudanese refugee women in the United States.

Conceptual Framework: The theory of Cultural Universality and Diversity was the conceptual framework guiding the study. Methods: Qualitative description method was used to describe Sudanese refugee women's perception of their access to, use of, and cultural influences on access and use of healthcare after resettling in the United States.

Results: South Sudanese refugee women's perception of accessing healthcare is understood through themes: Women's means of accessing healthcare, types of healthcare institution.

Perception of healthcare use is understood through the relationship between these themes: Care of self, concerns of the women, and the experience of using healthcare.

Perception of cultural influence on accessing and using of healthcare is understood through these themes: Coping, South Sudanese healthcare culture, and role of family.

Implications: The findings of this study may facilitate understanding healthcare access and use by refugee women. The knowledge from this study can lead to the development of culturally congruent interventions for resettled refugee women, in hopes of improving their access to and use of healthcare.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimate that there are approximately 1.4 million cases of hospital acquired infections (HAIs) at any given time worldwide. Recent reports indicate that 722,000 patients acquire HAIs, with 75,000 or more succumbing to the infections and dying. This quality improvement project focused on the value of re-educating practicing nurses on hand hygiene practices as an approach to reduce the incidence of HAIs. Pre-intervention rates of HAIs were compared with post-intervention rates of HAIs across 2 units (Unit A and Unit B) in an acute care setting to determine if re-educating nurses about hand hygiene was a plausible strategy in reducing HAIs in the acute care setting. The pre-intervention mean rate of Unit A was 0.146% and the post-mean rate was 0.00%. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that the educational intervention did not elicit a statistically significant change in infection rates (z = -1.63, p > 0.05). Similarly, the pre-intervention mean rate of Unit B was 0.12% and the post-mean rate was 0.00%. A Wilcoxon signed-rank test showed that the educational intervention did not elicit a statistically significant change in infection rates (z = 1.732, p > 0.05). Despite the lack of statistical significance, there was a reduction in the mean rate to 0.00% following the educational intervention. The results of this quality improvement project suggest a value in re-educating nurses on the importance of hand hygiene as a strategy to reduce and prevent HAIs in health care organizations in order to promote positive patient outcomes.

The purpose of this project was to demonstrate whether a multifaceted quality improvement intervention program would improve hand hygiene compliance of healthcare providers (HCPs) in the Emergency Department (ED). A descriptive design with an observational approach was used with a convenience sample of ED healthcare personnel at a large, 500 bed community hospital. Seven hundred and fifty-eight hand hygiene compliance direct observations were collected during 3 time periods (baseline, pre-intervention and post-intervention observation periods). Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze differences in hand hygiene compliance across the observation periods and by HCP job category.

The results indicated a statistically significant increase in hand hygiene compliance among all groups combined after a multifaceted intervention program was implemented. Efforts to change behavior, lifestyle and the environment must be varied and the target audience must be involved to be effective. This model can be applied to HCPs in other healthcare settings to improve compliance with hand hygiene, a fundamental infection prevention practice to prevent healthcare acquired infections.

Maintenance of appropriate posture is essential for the prevention of various musculoskeletal disorders. Postural stress is a common issue in elementary school children. The literature review indicated that schoolteachers have inadequate and improper postural knowledge. Based on such concepts, elementary schoolteachers in this present study implemented a postural awareness education program designed by the American Posture Institute. The present study indicated that postural awareness amongst schoolteachers was significantly low before the start of the program and was significantly increased after implementing the program (p < 0.01). Moreover, the program results seemed to match the expectations of the posture awareness program. However, the analysis also indicated that teachers failed to achieve requisite postural knowledge on all postural concepts (p < 0.01). Hence, the study necessitated the need for improving the postural awareness program (which was designed and developed by API). The study participants failed to develop a holistic knowledge on postural concepts and could not correlate different postural concepts with one another (p > 0.05). The study necessitated the need for sensitizing schoolteachers on different aspects of physiology and anatomy before implementing a postural education program.

Nosocomial infections are a significant medical burden to every health care setting in the United States. Also known as health-associated infections or hospital-acquired infections (HAIs), they are infections that people acquire while they are receiving treatment for another condition in a health care setting. To decrease rates of HAIs, Tr?-Vigil, LLC will provide health care facilities with point-of-care hand hygiene capability in the form of portable hand sanitizers that clip onto lab coats or scrubs, along with a monitoring system that tracks medical staff usage of the sanitizers. This business plan will demonstrate how Tr?-Vigil intends to deliver a vital health care service, while being a sustainable and profitable company.

Healthcare associated infections cause 75,000 to 80,000 deaths a year. Many are preventable with proper hand hygiene adherence (HHA). Worldwide, HHA range is between 40-60%, far below the 100% recommended. The purpose of this quantitative, cross-sectional, prospective study was to investigate any association between 15 demographic variables and HHA of ICU nurses. A convenience sample of 613 hand hygiene opportunities was collected by direct observation at each of 5ICUs (4 hospitals) in Texas for 8 consecutive hours each day for 3-5 days. The theoretical foundation guiding this study was the healthcare environment theory. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences software was used for descriptive and inferential analysis of data. An aggregated overall HHA rate of 64.09% was identified among all nurses, 66.88% among male nurses and 62.27% among female nurses. Number of children, age of the nurse, number of years of living in the U.S., and the number of years of active nursing practice were significantly associated with HHA (p = .000) using paired sample t-test. The potential social change impact of this study is identifying variables associated with HHA, identification and measurement of 4 barriers to HHA, measuring the Hawthorne Effect, identification of Low Gelers, High Gelers, and Super Gelers, average rate may not be indicative of what is happening in hospital, and call for standardization of surveillance methodology. Findings may lead to specific interventions to increase HHA among nurses with certain demographic characteristics.

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory case study was to explore the perceptions held by physicians, nurses, and other allied clinicians regarding hand-hygiene practices in order to understand what causes non-compliance with those practices. The conceptual framework guiding the research study was based on the social behavioral theories Rosenstocks Health Belief Model, The theory of reasoned action (TRA), introduced by Ajzen and Fishbein (1975) and The social cognitive theory which suggests that an individual’s behavior is determined by his or her own personal intention and that this intention is a function that also determines the individual’s attitude toward the subjective norm or behavior. This research study employed a telephone interview with open-ended questions to explore physician, nurse, and allied clinician perceptions about the hand washing and the factors for non-compliance. The content of the transcribed interviews were analyzed using NVivo 10 software to explore the hand hygiene perspective of a purposeful sample of 3 nurse, 3 physicians and 4 allied clinicians with at least two years of direct patient care experience. Interview data collected from the study resulted in 5 major themes encompassing the need for healthcare institutions to consider when developing hand hygiene initiatives. The descriptive patterns that emerged were: (a) lack of reoccurring formal education/training, (b) staff shortages, (c) sink placement, (d) skin breakdown and sensitivity to hand hygiene products, (e) educational differences among the three groups (physician, nurse, and allied clinician staff). Specifically the results of the case study showed demographic and generational variability with participants of different ages, educational backgrounds, and patient care experience. Results from the study led to recommendations for healthcare leaders that may strengthen hand hygiene compliance enforcement. Study results were also used to make suggestions for future research.