Meryem Türkan Işik

A BSTRACT: Aim: This study was aimed at assessing the attitudes of professional nurses providing healthcare services in hospitals towards homosexuals from an ethical aspect by determining the influencing factors and the problems they experience during the provision of healthcare services. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted between May and September 2022 with 206 nurses working in a public hospital. Data were collected using the ‘Nurse Information Form’ and ‘The Hudson-Ricketts Index of Homophobia’. ‘The Independent Sample-t test’, ‘Mann-Whitney U’, ‘ANOVA’ and ‘Kruskal-Wallis H’ test were used to compare three or more independent groups. Results: Among participating nurses, 50.5% perceived homosexuality as a disease, 68.4% reported no difficulty communicating with homosexual individuals, 71.4% believed that homosexuality is not something to be ashamed of, and 80.1% stated that they lacked adequate knowledge about homosexuality. The mean total Hudson-Ricketts Index of Homophobia (HRIH) score was 99.90 ± 26.21. Conclusion: The findings indicate that nurses’ prejudices contribute to negative discrimination. Enhancing societal acceptance of sexual diversity and fostering tolerant attitudes are essential to reducing prejudice. Comprehensive integration of sexual and gender minority health care into nursing education curricula is therefore imperative.

To reveal the challenges faced by nurses providing palliative care to hospitalized patients and to determine their levels of stress of conscience while del

Trust-based communication is extremely important in the patient-physician relationship. The patient's trust in the physician is necessary for the success of the treatment. Due to the unknown, anxiety and fear in the field of surgery, patients want to be understood more by their physicians. The objective of the study is to determine the hospitalized surgical patients’ opinions about the communication skills of the physicians in building trust and the factors affecting them. 201 patients staying at the surgical unit constituted the sample of this cross-sectional descriptive study. The data collection form consisted of questions measuring demographic data and the Scale of Trust Communication in the Patient-Physician Relationship. Descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis, Bonferroni correction and Spearman correlation coefficient have been used to analyze the data. The Scale of Trust Communication in the Patient-Physician Relationship total point average was 86.15 ± 10.34. A meaningful relationship was found between the total score and trust in the physician health care attitude, trust in the physician decisions and the patient’s behavior regarding the payment status. The trust communication average score of the patients was high, and the total scale point average increased as the sub-scale averages increased.

Amaç: John Snow, XIX. yüzyıl İngiltere'sinde yaşamış, anestezi ve epidemiyoloji alanında öncü olan önemli bir figürdür. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Snow'un tıp tarihindeki önemini ve koleranın su kaynaklı olduğunu savunduğu epidemiyolojik çalışmasının önemini ortaya koymaktır. Yöntem: Çalışmada, konuyla ilgili literatür sistematik biçimde incelenmiş, John Snow’un yaşamı ve bilimsel katkıları hakkında veriler toplanmış ve elde edilen veriler doğrultusunda değerlendirme yapılmıştır. Bulgular: John Snow, anestezi alanında klinik uygulamalar geliştirmiş ve üst solunum yollarına ilişkin araştırmalar gerçekleştirmiştir. Londra’da 1854 yılında gerçekleşen kolera salgını sırasında yaptığı ayrıntılı gözlemler sonucunda hastalığın solunum yoluyla değil, kontamine su ile bulaştığını savunmuştur. Soho bölgesindeki oluşan vakaları inceleyerek harita çıkarmış ve Broad Street’teki bir su pompasının salgının kaynağı olduğunu tespit etmiştir. Pompanın kapatılmasının ardından vaka sayılarında belirgin bir azalma yaşanmış ve koleraya bağlı ölümler kayda değer biçimde düşmüştür. Sonuç: Bu çalışmalar, epidemiyoloji bilimine büyük katkılar sağlamış ve su kaynaklı hastalıkların kontrolünde önemli bir dönüm noktası olmuştur. Bu dönüm noktasının tıp tarihine katkısı büyüktür.

This study was aimed at determining intensive care nurses’ perceptions of futile treatment and good death. In the study, 136 nurses working in intensive care units were included. The data of the study were collected with the “Nurse Information Form”, “Nurses’ Attitudes towards Futile Treatment Scale” and “Good Death Scale”. Frequency, descriptive statistics, Independent Samples-t test, “ANOVA” test, “Spearman” correlation coefficient were used to interpret the findings. The mean scores from the overall Nurses’ Attitudes towards Futile Treatment Scale and Good Death Scale score were 48.48 ± 9.26 and 54.46 ± 7.80, respectively. There was a significant relationship between their education levels and the mean scores they obtained from the overall Good Death Scale. There was a positive significant relationship between the scores obtained from each scale and their dimensions. It was concluded that the nurses could accept futile practices in line with certain principles that their perception of good death was at a good level.

The aim of this study was to determine medical school students' body image perceptions and prejudices towards obese individuals, reveal the relationship between these two concepts, determine the influencing factors, and raise awareness of the issue. The sample of the study consisted of 665 medical school students. 'Student Information Form', 'GAMS-27 Obesity Prejudice Scale' and 'Body Appreciation Scale' were used to collect data. For data analysis arithmetic mean, standard deviation, frequency, percentage distribution, t test/one-way analysis of variance, correlation coefficient, Shapiro-Wilk test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Spearman rho correlation coefficient, Kruskal Wallis H test, Mann-Whitney U test and Single One-way ANOVA F test were used. The overall Body Appreciation Scale and GAMS-27 Obesity Prejudice Scale mean scores were 27.57 ± 4.22 and 82.75 ± 10.68, respectively. There was no relationship between the Body Appreciation Scale and GAMS-27 Obesity Prejudice Scale mean scores (p > 0.05). The participants were prejudiced towards obese individuals. Factors such as gender, year of study, participation in sports, perceived body image, and desire to care for an obese patient did not affect the scores on the GAMS-27 Obesity Prejudice Scale and Body Appreciation Scale.

The aim is to determine nurses’ professional values and individualized care experiences and the affecting factors. This cross-sectional study was conducted with 470 nurses in a city hospital between September and November 2021. Information Form, Nurses Professional Values Scale (NPVS), and The Individualized Care Scale-Nurse Version (ICS-Nurse) were used for data collection. The average score on the NPVS was 118.16 ± 21.9. The total ICS-Nurse score of the participants was 3.96 ± 0.7. A positive, weak and statistically significant relationship was found between the NPVS and ICS-Nurse in terms of clinical status, personal life, and decision-making subdimension scores ( p < .05). The professional values of nurses were found to be at a moderate level which directly affect their approaches to individualized care. Having high levels of professional values can help nurses provide better individualized care to their patients.

Objective: It is extremely important for healthcare professionals to protect patients' privacy during diagnosis and treatment processes related to gynecology and obstetrics and to warn them in case patients' privacy is violated. This study was aimed at determining attitudes of female patients having obstetrics examination towards privacy and raising their awareness of privacy.Methods: This cross‐sectional‐descriptive study was conducted with 410 patients who presented to the gynecology and obstetrics outpatient clinic of a university hospital. The survey form consisted of two forms: The descriptive characteristics questionnaire and the body privacy scale for gynecology and obstetrics (BPSGO). Frequency tables, descriptive statistics, Mann–Whitney U‐test, Kruskal–Wallis H‐test, and Bonferroni correction were used in the analysis of the data.Results: The mean age of the participants was 36.75 ± 11.18 years. Of these, 38.0% were in the age group of ≥40 years, 84.0% were married, 66.8% presented to the gynecology clinic, and 58.3% had negative emotions before they had gynecologic examination. Ethics and privacy subscale scores of the single participants were significantly higher than were those of the married participants.Conclusion: It was determined that privacy was affected by cultural characteristics, belief systems and personal values, and that most of the participants were likely to experience negative emotions. It is important to raise health professionals' awareness of privacy by drawing their attention to the value of privacy which is among ethical values in their education and to support the better functioning of legal regulations on this issue.

Menstruation is a natural process, and pain, an unpleasant symptom, negatively affects quality of life. The aim of this study is to determine women's cultural perception of pain during menstruation, traditional and complementary medicinal practices used to cope with the pain, and pain beliefs. This study has a cross-sectional design. The sample of the study consisted of 892 women For data collection a questionnaire created by the researchers after literature review and the Pain Beliefs Questionnaire were used. 71.9% of the participants used traditional methods to reduce menstrual pain. Factors that affected the pain beliefs score were education level, health insurance status, longest region of residence, frequency of pain during menstruation, using painkillers, using traditional methods and factors causing pain (p