ABSTRACT
Blood samples collected from deceased tissue donors for mandatory transfusion microbiology testing may be taken either at the time of tissue donation, or residual samples may be retrieved from hospital laboratories where they were originally used for ante-mortem tests. In the latter case, sample labelling may not conform to the required standard, which stipulates that three independent identifiers be provided. If no alternative adequately labelled sample is available for testing the donated tissues may have to be discarded, which can adversely affect tissue sufficiency. An alternative method to ensure that the blood sample to be tested is from the intended deceased donor is to confirm the identity of the blood sample by Deoxyribonucleic Nucleic Acid (DNA) Short Tandem Repeats (STR) analysis, then comparing the DNA profile with the DNA from the donated tissues. If the two DNA profiles are identical, probability calculations can demonstrate the chance of the two samples of DNA being from the same or different individuals. The authors have used this approach to salvage deceased tissue donations.
Subject(s)
Blood Donors , DNA Fingerprinting , Microsatellite Repeats/genetics , Bone Marrow/metabolism , Cadaver , Chromosomes, Human/genetics , Female , Gene Frequency , Humans , Male , Reproducibility of ResultsABSTRACT
There is considerable literature pertaining to the health care of the elderly and nursing has developed educational programmes whose major focus is the geriatric population. Nursing has also begun to recognize needs of people from different cultural backgrounds, which has resulted in the development of programmes in transcultural nursing. In light of this important variable of racial and cultural differences, the purpose of this study is to compare the locus of control of the black elderly to the white elderly. An individual's locus of control could affect their health care practices and beliefs. Locus of control is a measurable concept in psychology which explains how individuals make choices concerning their behaviour. The design is descriptive. Rotter's locus of control scale was used. The sample was based on non-random methods. The settings for this study were senior citizen centres and retirement communities in a midsize midwestern metropolitan area. The mean score for black elderly was 9.074. The scores were analysed with the t-test, which failed to show a significant difference in the scores of the two groups. The results failed to show that black elderly differ significantly from white elderly in regard to locus of control.
