Maha Atout

Background: Despite the generally recognised best practices of breastfeeding as the best method of feeding newborns, the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in Jordan is still way below the global average. Although cultural and religious beliefs promote breastfeeding by mothers, other mothers end up quitting earlier than the advised time. It is critical to know the intentions of mothers and the barriers they encounter to develop effective nursing and policy interventions. Methods: This was a qualitative descriptive study carried out in a single hospital, which is a government hospital located in Amman, Jordan. It involved the semi-structured interviews on 15 pregnant women in their second or third trimester, and data were recorded, transcribed and analysed via content analysis. Results: Most of the mothers were highly motivated to breastfeed because they found it to be natural, healthy and cost-effective, and they felt emotionally rewarded to do so. Nevertheless, it had serious obstacles. Mothers had fears of poor body image, poor milk supply and physical discomfort and felt that maternity leave was too short and that breastfeeding could not be accommodated within their work schedule. Lack of professional help made many mothers turn to their families or online media to get their help. Conclusion: Jordanian mothers are found to be highly motivated to breastfeed, yet they face long-term cultural, social and occupational barriers to exclusive breastfeeding. Although breastfeeding is widely regarded as optimal for infant feeding, exclusive breastfeeding rates in Jordan remain far below global targets. Despite cultural and religious values encouraging mothers to breastfeed, many mothers stop earlier than recommended. Understanding mothers’ intentions and the obstacles they face is essential to designing practical nursing and policy interventions.

BACKGROUND Caring for children with cancer deeply affects mothers’ daily lives, emotions, and family roles; however, to date, little has been learned about these experiences in the context of Jordan. AIM To examine the lived experiences of Jordanian mothers of children with cancer, with a focus on their coping mechanisms, support systems, and challenges. METHODS This descriptive qualitative study involved the use of semi-structured interviews with 20 mothers of children visiting a pediatric hospital in Jordan. Thematic analysis was employed, guided by the transactional model of stress and coping and the theory of spiritual coping, to analyze the resulting data. RESULTS Three major themes were revealed. The idea of a transformative coping journey included several subthemes, namely shifting priorities, holding back tears to appear strong, learning important lessons, and reconstructing futures while delaying personal dreams. The second emergent theme, perceived challenges, included subthemes around the emotional irritability of the sick child; the impact on family life and daily routines; and preparation of the home environment for children after recovery. Finally, the theme of support systems included subthemes regarding emotional and practical support from extended family and the use of mothers’ deep beliefs in destiny and God’s will as key sources of strength and endurance. CONCLUSION Developing a broad range of support services in the Jordanian context to assist parents whose children have been diagnosed with cancer is essential. Possible focuses for such programs could include the provision of counselling services, support groups, and educational resources to help parents more effectively manage stress, thereby enhancing their emotional well-being.

Objectives: Aiming to validate the Fordyce Global Happiness Scale in Arabic, this cross‐sectional study recruited two convenience Saudi samples of 422 university students and 85 mothers of children with intellectual disabilities. Methods: Among students, a latent variable model was used to examine scale convergent/divergent validity relative to life satisfaction and depressive symptomatology. Scale cutoffs were assessed in the two samples through cluster analyses and ROC analysis. Differences in happiness were evaluated between mothers and students and across student groups of gender, academic degree, and type of study (practical vs. theoretical). Results: The latent variable model expressed good fit, showing satisfaction with life and positive affect as significant positive predictors of happiness, which was inversely associated with somatic complaints and negative affect. Two‐step cluster analysis resulted in a two‐cluster solution, which revealed three cutoffs (among students: < 5, 5–8, > 8 and among mothers: < 4, 4–8, > 8), which significantly classified the samples according to the levels of happiness into low/mild, moderate, and high. ROC analysis revealed an optimal cutoff of 4.5 with high sensitivity (100%) and acceptable specificity (74% and 62%) among students and mothers, respectively. The highest and lowest levels of all depressive symptoms were noticed in participants with happiness scores (< 4.5 or < 5) and > 8, respectively. Known‐group validity was signaled by lower overall happiness scores in the mother sample relative to university students. Conclusions: Fordyce Global Happiness Scale captures happiness as a distinct construct, which relates to the cognitive and emotional components of well‐being and physical symptoms of psychopathology.

This study aimed to understand the experiences of Jordanian parents of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) and how this condition impacted their quality of life and their day-to-day life experiences. The study used a descriptive phenomenological design. Forty parents who had children being cared for in a paediatric cardiac ward were interviewed. Three interrelated experiential patterns emerged: parents’ profound emotional changes after diagnosis, their continuing adaptation to challenges of caring for their child with social, spiritual and financial support, and the need for information to enhance their participation in care. Parenting a child with CHD is a significant life transition that is marked by uncertainty, emotional distress and adjustment. These experiences were influenced by family dynamics, spiritual coping, and financial constraints of the Jordanian healthcare system. The results suggest the need for family-focused education and psychosocial support to build parents’ confidence and decrease uncertainty to improve their long-term ability to manage their parental roles.

Background: Typically, mothers are the primary caregivers for their children; therefore, their knowledge and attitude towards febrile seizures impact the management of this condition in the home environment. Aims: This study is designed to explore mothers’ knowledge, attitudes towards managing febrile seizures at home, and the correlation between socio-demographic variables and knowledge and attitudes towards managing febrile seizures. Methods: This research adopted a cross-sectional design consisting of a convenience sample of 84 mothers who had attended a paediatric clinic or accompanied their child during hospitalisation at two public hospitals in northern Jordan between August 2021 and December 2021. The data employed by this study were gathered via a valid structured questionnaire that was adapted from the work of Elbilgahy and Abd El Aziz. Results: This study revealed that 63.6% of participants possessed a good knowledge of the condition, and that 63.1% of participants exhibited positive attitudes towards febrile seizure management. In addition, there was a significant positive correlation between the knowledge and attitude scores ( r = 0.274, p = 0.012) of mothers regarding the management of febrile seizures in children. Furthermore, the findings of this study indicate that the educational level of mothers was only an associated factor of knowledge ( B = −0.821, p = 0.034). Conclusion: Mothers demonstrated generally good knowledge and positive attitudes towards febrile seizure management; however, important misconceptions persist. Targeted educational interventions by healthcare professionals are needed to improve safe home management and support parental confidence.

Introduction: Through evidence-based practice (EBP) implementation, midwives are critical in maternal care. However, there remain unrecognised barriers that they frequently experienced. Such barriers within Jordan perspective include insufficient managerial support, excessive workloads and limited resources. Objective: To gain an in-depth understanding and facilitate the implementation of maternity care improvements, this study examines the perspectives of midwives concerning the barriers to implementing EBP in northern Jordan. Methods: This study adopted a cross-sectional, descriptive design with the BARRIERS scale to investigate the barriers during the implementation process including adopter, communication, organisation and innovation. 191 midwives participated with the scale, all works from the gynaecology and obstetrics departments within seven government and university hospitals in Northern Jordan. Analyses were performed upon the data including descriptive statistics, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and linear regression. Results: Midwives perceptions indicated that the top three barriers to the implementation of EBP are innovation, organisation and communication. The regression analysis revealed a negative correlation between perceived barriers and education level (F (2, 188) = 8.657, p < 0.001). However, there were no correlation between age and work experience. Conclusion: The midwives revealed that the major obstacles to EBP utilisation are organisational factors. The key facilitator is proper support from the management. Therefore, the recommendation from this study is the implementation of robust strategies that reduces organisational barriers, strengthen staff training, managerial and police support as well as active engagement with leadership. Despite the focus of this research is Jordan, the findings may not be specific to this region. As such, it is possible to assume that the recommendations can be applied to maternity care within healthcare contexts that have similar organisational attributes and challenges. However, cautious interpretation of the findings must be made due to the geographical limitations and reliance upon self-reported data within this study.

Background: The Heart Failure Somatic Perception Scale (HFSPS) is a brief instrument designed to assess the perceived burden of common symptoms of heart failure (HF). Aim: To investigate the psychometrics of the Arabic HFSPS. Methods: This methodological study investigated the construct validity of the HFSPS among 180 Omani patients with HF through exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis. Criterion validity was evaluated through correlations with the symptom frequency dimension of Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire 12-item (KCCQ-12), Control Attitudes Scale-Revised Five-Items (CAS-R 5), and Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2). Results: EFA revealed three factors with eigenvalues >1, which explained 56.1% of the variance. Out of seven competing models, a five-factor structure comprising a new factor “weight gain,” which comprised correlated items “11 and 14” in other models, expressed the best fit. It was invariant across gender and marital status with adequate convergent and discriminant validity as indicated by average variance extracted >0.50, strong subscale–total correlations, and acceptable heterotrait–monotrait ratios. Criterion validity was evidenced by significant associations with KCCQ-12 symptom frequency, PHQ-2, and CAS-R 5, and HFSPS reliability was excellent (ω = .93). Conclusion: Weight gain seems a distinct dimension that deciphers error correlations previously found in the HFSPS. It may relate to patients’ physical activity, nutritional habits, and metabolic dysregulations, necessitating integrating weight control measures in the routine care of patients with HF.

Background: In nursing education, incivility is typically defined as incidences of impolite or disruptive conduct that may induce psychological or physiological distress in the affected individuals . This study aimed to explore academic incivility in nursing education, with particular attention to student behaviours towards educators, from the perspectives of both nursing students and faculty members in Jordan. Methods: A qualitative descriptive design was adopted in this study. The study included faculty members and nursing students in their second, third, or fourth years study for a nursing degree. Data were obtained from nineteen semistructured interviews (15 with nursing students and four with faculty members), and three focus groups. Results: The following three primary themes (and subthemes) were revealed by the qualitative analysis: (1) uncivil behaviours during lectures (disrespecting the lecturer, using phones during lectures and making fun during lectures), (2) causes of uncivil behaviours (lack of policy/absence of policy implementation and excessive pressure on nursing students) and (3) suggestions for improvement (using creative teaching methods, improving the atmosphere in lectures and more assertive and consistent approaches from lecturers). Conclusions: The findings indicate the need for more creative teaching methods, an improved lecture atmosphere with adequate breaks, encouraging more engaging approaches in instructors and reducing the academic load on nursing students.

In Occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), which is in a complex political situation and has limited access to resources, there is a critical need to deepen the understanding of how children with life-limiting and life-threatening illnesses are cared for. This study explores the experiences of parents caring for more than one child with a chronic or serious illness. A qualitative descriptive method was adopted, with data collected from several paediatric units in two OPT cities, Tulkarm and Ramallah. Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 16 parents (each interview was of an individual parent). Data were analysed using thematic analysis, and the analysis unearthed seven major themes that reflected the parents’ experiences. These were as follows: Significant life changes with the first child’s illness; the second experience; becoming stronger; support systems; economic difficulties; social stigma; and social isolation. Data analyses suggest that there is a significant need for emotional and physical support to be provided to parents, and culturally salient social service provisions should be implemented to alleviate the burden placed on these parents.

Background: The aim of this study was to explore the intention of Jordanian patients diagnosed with hyperlipidemia to engage in physical activity. This objective was achieved via an in-depth analysis of how patient attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control can influence patient intentions to exercise. Additionally, this research examined how sociodemographic factors and perceived barriers can impact patient participation in physical activity. Methodology: This study employed a cross-sectional approach on a convenience sample of Jordanian patients diagnosed with hyperlipidemia. To gain the required data, a 15-item questionnaire (derived from the Theory of Planned Behavior) was presented to the participants in the form of an online survey (via several platforms, including WhatsApp, Facebook, and email). Results: The results indicate that perceived behavioral control had a significant correlation with the participants’ intentions to participate in physical activity. Additionally, the findings revealed that there were no significant correlations between demographic features (age, marital status, level of education, and monthly income) and intention to engage in physical activity. However, the results ascertained the existence of several facilitators to exercise (such as financial resource availability, self-interest, beneficial weather conditions, and supportive friends or exercise partners). The most commonly reported barriers to physical activity included time constraints, work commitments, and limitations imposed by existing health conditions. Conclusions: These findings provide valuable insights that can be employed to develop physical activity programs that address the cultural needs of Jordanian patients diagnosed with hyperlipidemia and enhance their levels of physical activity.