Attitude of the staff nurses toward COVID care and work challenges faced by them.

Background: At the beginning of pandemic, many of the nurses were scared of contracting COVID infection by themselves. The work of nurses during the pandemic was highly appreciated by the society though they worked with severe challenges. Hence, it was utmost necessary to explore the attitude of the nurses toward COVID care and what challenges they faced during caring for the COVID patients. Objectives: The main objectives of the study were to assess the attitude of the nurses toward working in COVID units, to identify the challenges faced by the nurses, and to find out the relationship between the nurses attitude and challenges. Methods: The study was carried out adopting descriptive survey design with 190 conveniently selected staff nurses working in the selected COVID care units of Kolkata and Bankura. Two self-developed rating scales were administered using self-reporting method to measure the attitude and challenges of the nurses. Results: All the staff nurses expressed their favorable (positive) attitude. Maximum (64.21%) of the staff nurses had a high level of challenges. A very weak positive correlation found between attitude of the staff nurses toward COVID care and challenges they faced (ρ = 0.197, P = 0.006). Computation of Chi-square test revealed that neither attitude nor challenges was influenced by any of the personal characteristics of the nurses. Conclusion: In spite of working with a high level of challenges, the majority of the nurses demonstrated favorable attitude toward taking care of COVID patients.

Quality of life and empowerment among women.

BACKGROUND: Few women in history were respected by society because of their contributions to the field of science, arts, politics, and so on, but in general, women are deprived of their rights and being refrained from decision-making in major areas of individual and family life. This research tried to investigate the degree of empowerment and quality of life (QOL) of the women to find out the relationship between empowerment and QOL of women. MATERIALS AND METHODS: An exploratory survey was carried out among 210 purposively selected married women aged between 20 and 49 years in a selected municipality area of West Bengal. Data were obtained by one-to-one interviews using Women Empowerment Interview Schedule and WHOQOL Scale BREF. RESULTS: The mean total QOL score of the women was found as 98.59 ± 13.61. The transformed scores in the physical, psychological, social relation, and environmental domains were 74.92 ± 14.97, 66.58 ± 15.78, 81.00 ± 18.07, and 65.28 ± 17.99, respectively. The degree of empowerment was calculated as 64.71 ± 6.79. Among the women, 5% had poor, 62% had medium, and 33% had a high degree of empowerment. A weak positive correlation (r = 0.325, P = 0.001) was found between QOL and empowerment. Significant associations were established between empowerment and education (Fisher's exact = 13.975 [0.007]) and education gap with husband (Fisher's Exact = 8.68, P 0.069). Multiple regression analysis between empowerment dimensions and QOL shows that personal or family dimensions, including health, are a significant predictor for the QOL (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Most of the women had medium degree of empowerment. Increased degree of empowerment improves their QOL of women. Women should be aware of their rights that can enhance the empowerment in different dimensions of life.