Preparation and Evaluation of a Professional Development Series for Early-Career Oncology Nurses in Europe

The European Oncology Nursing Society Nightingale Challenge was a professional development program delivered via seven one-hour webinars focusing on leadership, career development, and managing burnout. A total of 151 participants attended one or more webinars, and 51 participants provided feedback, with 84% evaluating the program positively, 77% saying it met their expectations for learning, 65% considering the webinars relevant, and 59% stating the knowledge is applicable to personal development. Some participants experienced difficulties with the speed (8%) and length (9%) of presentations. However, online learning may enhance oncology nurses' access to personal and professional development.

Digital Educational Escape Room Analysis Using Learning Styles

Teachers often need to adapt their teaching methodologies in order to overcome possible limitations and ensure that education does not lose quality in the face of different scenarios that may arise in the educational environment, which are not always the most desirable. Techniques such as the Educational Escape Room (ERE) in higher education, are taking a great increase due to its popularity among young people as a leisure activity. This study shows an educational research based on the application of a Digital Educational Escape Room (DEER) to respond to the limitations of hybrid teaching with students divided between the classroom and their homes. Through the analysis of a control group, with a traditional lecture class, and an experimental group with the use of a pretest and a posttest, with the addition of studying the different learning styles of the students in each group, interesting results and conclusions have been obtained that offer a replicability of this technique for other fields and educational modalities.

[Hand hygiene and pandemic. Controversies]. / Higiene de manos y pandemia. Controversias.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world's healthcare systems were extremely strained. Intensive care units were stretched to capacity and healthcare facilities were forced to set up spaces to care for critically ill patients. Professionals were required to work in strenuous conditions, completely disrupting their work routines.In this scenario, hand hygiene and the use of gloves by healthcare professionals became a critical point of transmission risk.The results of the ENVIN study in 2020 and 2021, corresponding to the pandemic period, showed worrying data on the increase in infection rates, with rates rising by 250% at the worst moments of the pandemic. This suggested that excessive risk situations were occurring for the patient. Any preventive strategy must place correct hand hygiene and proper use of gloves among its priority objectives. For this reason, the Project Zero Advisory Board made a series of adaptations and recommendations based on available evidence and expert opinion related to hand hygiene and glove use during the pandemic situation to promote best practice in extreme situations. This article reviews the key aspects of hand hygiene as part of the WHO safety strategy, the main barriers to compliance and the main adaptations proposed by the Advisory Board of the Zero projects.

Higiene de manos y pandemia. Controversias Hand hygiene and pandemic. Controversies

Durante la pandemia de COVID-19 los sistemas sanitarios mundiales han estado tensionados de forma extrema. Las unidades de cuidados intensivos se situaron al límite de su capacidad y los centros sanitarios se vieron obligados a habilitar espacios para atender a pacientes críticos. Los profesionales requirieron trabajar en condiciones extenuantes alterando completamente sus rutinas de trabajo. En este escenario, la higiene de las manos y el uso de guantes de los profesionales asistenciales se convirtieron en puntos críticos del riesgo de transmisión de infecciones relacionadas con la asistencia sanitaria. Los resultados del estudio ENVIN de los años 2020 y 2021, correspondientes al momento pandémico, arrojaron datos preocupantes de crecimiento de las tasas de infección asociadas a dispositivos invasivos, llegando a constatar aumentos del 250% de las tasas en los peores momentos de la pandemia. Esto hizo pensar que se estaban produciendo excesivas situaciones de riesgo para el paciente. Cualquier estrategia preventiva debe situar la correcta higiene de manos y el uso adecuado de los guantes dentro de sus objetivos prioritarios. Por este motivo, el Consejo Asesor de los Proyectos Zero realizó una serie de adaptaciones y recomendaciones basadas en la evidencia disponible y en la opinión de expertos relacionadas con ambas medidas durante la situación de pandemia, y así favorecer las mejores prácticas en situaciones extremas. El objetivo de este artículo es revisar los aspectos clave relacionados con la higiene de manos, siempre enmarcada en la estrategia de seguridad de la OMS, las principales barreras para su cumplimiento, y la formulación de las principales adaptaciones propuestas por el Consejo Asesor de los proyectos Zero.

POLICIES ON PARENTAL ACCESS RESTRICTION IN NEONATAL UNITS AND MATERNITY WARDS DURING THE SARS-COV-2 PANDEMIC

Background. Since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, most neonatal units around the world have restricted parents’ access, aiming to protect the staff and the babies against the infection. Objective. To evaluate the side effects of the limitation of parents presence with their babies in neonatal units and those related to restrictions on maternity wards access. Method. Literature review. A search using ‘SARS-CoV-2’ and ‘COVID-19’ as keywords combined to ‘neonatal’, ‘NICU’, ‘parents’, ‘family centered care’ and ‘neurodevelopmental care’. Consultation of websites containing updated and summarized scientific literature about the pandemic and its consequences in newborns has also been performed: www.dontforgetthebubles.com and www.seneo.es. The voice of the families has been mainly obtained through the websites of their associations and the social networks. Results. The family-centered care model has shown positive effects on the health of sick newborns and on premature infants’ neurodevelopment. This model of care is under threat if parental access is limited. It has been shown that these restrictions have also adverse effects on breastfeeding and on caregivers’ psychological wellbeing. Data from different neonatal series report a benign course of COVID-19 infection in neonates and preterm babies. Conclusions. At a crucial moment for the implementation of the developmental centered care model in Catalan neonatal units, and with the available data, it is essential to redesign the policies regarding parents who accompany their babies admitted to the units.

Periurban Areas in the Design of Supra-Municipal Strategies for Urban Green Infrastructures

Nowadays, an increasing number of large cities, districts, and towns have tools for the Planning and Management of Green Infrastructures. All such tools seek a progression towards a future city model that is more resilient on an environmental, economic, and social level. To achieve this, emphasis is placed on the creation of a green infrastructure and, particularly, on improving urban biodiversity, urban forests, the value of natural areas in the urban environment, periurban agriculture, ecological connectivity, and accessibility. Moreover, the recent COVID19 health crisis has further highlighted that the city dweller's relationship with the environment requires a reconciliation with nature and rural life that goes beyond typical compartmentalization. The objective must be to emphasize the need to establish creative processes which, through micro-scale activities (landscaping), generate the articulation of visible actions on a territorial scale (landscape planning) in both the natural environment (environmental landscape planning) and the urban environment (town planning based on the landscape). This article analyzes the issue of the large towns in south-west Madrid, where there is a dramatic divide on the border between the city landscape and the surrounding natural or agricultural landscape, and where there is an increasing need to establish landscapes with a certain uniqueness and to classify them as protected periurban areas, nature reserves, or land for which use and management is regulated. It is therefore important to develop environmental quality standards to assess Green Infrastructures as a whole: the administrative processes, their design, construction, maintenance, and resilience. This research focuses upon how this change in the planning and management of green periurban areas improves the multifunctionality of periurban spaces along with the intrinsic quality of the landscape, and promotes the city's sustainability and resilience and improves governance. From the conclusions drawn, it should be noted that analysis, design, and action should be built on premises of sustainability and multifunctionality, and comply with the criteria for characterizing elements as green infrastructure. In the field of study, the characterization of the periurban area, and its subsequent assessment as a green infrastructure, provide the guidelines for action for devising an Open Space Strategy. This strategy constitutes a cross-disciplinary planning tool for local authorities when reading the landscape.