Factors influencing nurses' participation in clinical research.

Clinical research is necessary for developing nursing's body of knowledge and improving the quality of gastroenterology nursing care. The support and participation of nursing staff are crucial to conducting interventional research. Identification of characteristics of nurses and their work settings that facilitate or impede participation in research is needed. The purpose of this descriptive correlational study was to examine the effect of personal and professional characteristics and attitudes about nursing research on staff nurses' participation in a clinical nursing research project. A questionnaire measuring nurses' attitudes, perceptions of availability of support, and research use was distributed to staff nurses working on an endoscopy lab and two same-day surgery units where a nursing research study had recently been conducted. Investigator-developed items measured nurses' attitudes about the utility and feasibility of the interventions tested in the original study. A total of 36 usable questionnaires comprised the sample. Factor analysis of the two questionnaires resulted in three-factor (Importance of Research, Interest in Research, and Environment Support of Research) and two-factor (Value of Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions [CBIs] and Participation in Study) solutions, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in mean scores for the five factors between nurses who did (n = 19) and those who did not (n = 17) participate in the original study. The Participation in Research Factor was significantly negatively correlated with years in nursing (r = -.336, p < .05) and positively correlated with the importance of research factor (r = .501, p < .01). Importance of research was negatively correlated with years in nursing (r = -.435, p < .01) and positively correlated with value of CBI (r = .439, p < .01) and participation in study (r = .501, p < .01). Findings from the study will contribute to the body of knowledge about factors that facilitate or impede staff nurses' involvement in research. This knowledge will be useful for nurse researchers planning intervention studies to forecast and foster staff nurse involvement in their projects. Findings may also be useful to nurse managers, nurse educators, and staff development personnel in assessing and promoting staff nurses' involvement in research.

Control of Listeria spp. by competitive-exclusion bacteria in floor drains of a poultry processing plant.

In previous studies workers determined that two lactic acid bacterium isolates, Lactococcus lactis subsp. lactis C-1-92 and Enterococcus durans 152 (competitive-exclusion bacteria [CE]), which were originally obtained from biofilms in floor drains, are bactericidal to Listeria monocytogenes or inhibit the growth of L. monocytogenes both in vitro and in biofilms at 4 to 37 degrees C. We evaluated the efficacy of these isolates for reducing Listeria spp. contamination of floor drains of a plant in which fresh poultry is processed. Baseline assays revealed that the mean numbers of Listeria sp. cells in floor drains sampled on six different dates (at approximately biweekly intervals) were 7.5 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2) for drain 8, 4.9 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2) for drain 3, 4.4 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2) for drain 2, 4.1 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2) for drain 4, 3.7 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2) for drain 1, and 3.6 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2) for drain 6. The drains were then treated with 10(7) CE/ml in an enzyme-foam-based cleaning agent four times in 1 week and twice a week for the following 3 weeks. In samples collected 1 week after CE treatments were applied Listeria sp. cells were not detectable (samples were negative as determined by selective enrichment culture) for drains 4 and 6 (reductions of 4.1 and 3.6 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2), respectively), and the mean numbers of Listeria sp. cells were 3.7 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2) for drain 8 (a reduction of 3.8 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2)), <1.7 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2) for drain 1 (detectable only by selective enrichment culture; a reduction of 3.3 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2)), and 2.6 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2) for drain 3 (a reduction of 2.3 log(10) CFU/100 cm(2)). However, the aerobic plate counts for samples collected from floor drains before, during, and after CE treatment remained approximately the same. The results indicate that application of the two CE can greatly reduce the number of Listeria sp. cells in floor drains at 3 to 26 degrees C in a facility in which fresh poultry is processed.

Two quantitative approaches for estimating content validity.

Instrument content validity is often established through qualitative expert reviews, yet quantitative analysis of reviewer agreements is also advocated in the literature. Two quantitative approaches to content validity estimations were compared and contrasted using a newly developed instrument called the Osteoporosis Risk Assessment Tool (ORAT). Data obtained from a panel of eight expert judges were analyzed. A Content Validity Index (CVI) initially determined that only one item lacked interrater proportion agreement about its relevance to the instrument as a whole (CVI = 0.57). Concern that higher proportion agreement ratings might be due to random chance stimulated further analysis using a multirater kappa coefficient of agreement. An additional seven items had low kappas, ranging from 0.29 to 0.48 and indicating poor agreement among the experts. The findings supported the elimination or revision of eight items. Pros and cons to using both proportion agreement and kappa coefficient analysis are examined.