A Comparison on the Level of Pain Related to Methods of Blood Sugar test using VAS / 성인간호학회지

PUPPOSE: The purpose of this study is to determine the level of pain related to a blood sugar test. Specifically, the study attempts to compare the varying degree of pains when different types of blood sugar test are used. METHOD: A sample of 56 subjects is composed of DM patients admitted to a medical ward of C university hospital in Gwangju. Data were collected from July, 2001 to December, 2001. The blood sugar tests were administered in four different ways: (1) the use of 27G needle only, (2) the use of 27G needle followed by ice-packed treatment, (3) the use of 27G needle after EMLA cream application, and (4) the use of lancet. The degree of pain is measured with a visual analogue scale and performed twice. RESULT: In both measures, the use of 27G needle only method is shown to cause the highest level of pain in comparison with the rest of methods (F=4.01, p=.01; F=8.14, p=.00). However, the differences in pain between time in all methods were not found to be significant (t=-.85, p=.40; t=.80, p=.42; t=.31, p=.75; t=.19, p=.85). CONCLUSION: The study results indicate that the method using lanceter is more recommendable than the use of 27G needle only method. Further research is needed to support the current study result with the use of different measurement scales and to determine effective methods of blood sugar test to lower pain and compliance.

Development of a Constipation Intervention Program for Inpatients / 성인간호학회지

PURPOSE: The purposes of this study were to develope and evaluate a constipation intervention program for inpatients. METHOD: To develope this program, Six phases were processed including the organization of team, the analysis of medical chart, the development of tentative constipation intervention program, the test of content validity, the test of clinical validity and the determination of final constipation intervention program. To evaluate the clinical validity of this program, 10 subjects who were in the C University Hospital were selected from March, 2001 to October, 2001. RESULT: The clinical validity was supplied by the pilot test, showing the potential effect of the program. Based on the validity results the final algorithm and the form of nursing record for this program which consist of the 3-step assessments and the intervention protocol were presented in this study. CONCLUSION: The advantage of this program is being able to assess and manage constipation simultaneously and is especially effective to patients who are at risk for developing constipation during their admission. Further study needs are also necessary to evaluate the effect of this program on the self-symptom of constipation.

Research Trends on Applications of Complementary Therapy for Relief of Chemotherapy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting / 성인간호학회지

PURPOSE: Purposes of this study were to understand the current trends on complementary therapy in relieving chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and to suggest the future research direction. METHOD: Subjects were selected on CINAHL, MEDLINE, Korean Academy Data Base from 1980 to 2001 which used nausea, vomiting, chemotherapy and complementary therapy as key words in experimental studies. Eight korean articles and twenty-one international articles were analyzed in terms of general characteristics, research methods, and types of complementary therapy. Data were analyzed by using descriptive statistical methods. RESULT: Since 2000, researchers have more actively used complementary therapy. In subject characteristics, mean age was 35.5 years old, 45% of the researchers were performed with high level of incidence of chemotherapy induced vomiting, 14% of them set limit of consecutive cycle during research, and 65% of them did not comment the selecting criteria of sample. About 60% of them were designed post-test only control group; 35% used INV by Rhodes, 31% used Likert scale, and 24% used VAS for dependent variable. Muscle relaxation therapy was mostly applied for relief of nausea and vomiting. CONCLUSION: Further studies will be needed to control extrinsic variables affecting nausea and vomiting in research design and to accumulate evidence with studies applying various complementary therapies.