Melek Üçüncüoğlu

Background: In the complex context of Intensive Care Units (ICUs), healthcare professionals coordinate care under considerable time pressure, uncertainty, and emotional strain. Effective interprofessional communication is essential for safe, high-quality patient care and is influenced by the communication attitudes of team members. This study aimed to explore the communication attitudes of healthcare professionals working in ICUs.Methods: This qualitative study involved 40 healthcare professionals, including resident physicians, nurses, and anaesthesia technicians. Data were collected in March 2023 through brief individual scenario-based simulation encounters followed by profession-specific focus group interviews. Focus group interview data and observation notes from the simulation sessions were analysed using inductive thematic analysis.Results: Six themes were identified: hierarchical structure, duties and responsibilities, role of the patient, team dynamics, coping mechanisms, and limitations of ICU simulation. Communication attitudes were strongly shaped by authority gradients, role ambiguity, and local team norms, often constraining open dialogue and collaborative decision-making. Participants also described emotional strain and a tendency to manage communication challenges through avoidance or hierarchical escalation rather than direct engagement.Conclusion: Communication in ICUs is shaped not only by individual skills but also by attitudes embedded within organisational structures, professional relationships, and workplace cultures. By foregrounding communication attitudes rather than behaviours alone, this study provides insight into how communication practices are learned, reinforced, and negotiated in critical care settings. Context-sensitive communication education, particularly in-situ simulation that reflects authentic team configurations, may support more reflective interprofessional learning and contribute to safer, more collaborative ICU practice.

A “communicator” is one of the competencies identified by a competent physician. As a nontechnical skill, effective communication needs to be d

Patients play a crucial role in healthcare, and their involvement before surgery has been associated with shorter intensive care unit (ICU) stays and faste

Aim: To explore the role of focus group interviews as a qualitative tool in undergraduate medical education program evaluation, highlighting their capacity to capture complex and nuanced stakeholder experiences beyond traditional evaluation methods.Materials and Methods: Documents related to program evaluation activities conducted between 2021 and 2024 at Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Medicine were analyzed. The data sources included program evaluation committee reports and transcripts of focus group interviews conducted with medical students from various year levels (Years I–VI) and faculty members. A retrospective qualitative document analysis was carried out using a contextual qualitative analysis framework. Thematic analysis was employed to identify key themes emerging from the focus groups, which were then compared with the findings from official evaluation reports.Results: Across three academic years, a total of 18 focus group interviews were conducted, involving 112 participants (84 students and 28 faculty members). Four key themes emerged from the focus group İNTERVİEWS: (1) misalignment between theoretical and clinical training, (2) role ambiguity among educators, (3) infrastructure and resource deficiencies, and (4) excessive faculty workload. Students emphasized the need for structured orientation programs and improved faculty-student interaction. Faculty members noted difficulties related to unclear role expectations, low motivation, and lack of curricular standardization. Compared to standard evaluation reports, focus group data provided richer insights into motivational barriers, environmental limitations, and institutional challenges.Conclusions: The findings demonstrate that focus group interviews significantly enhance traditional program evaluation methods by offering a deeper understanding of the educational experience. Systematic integration of such interviews into evaluation processes may lead to a more comprehensive understanding of student and faculty perspectives and support more effective curriculum reforms. Future research should explore the long-term impact of this approach on educational planning, quality improvement, and institutional decision-making.

Background: Operating rooms are high‐risk environments where managerial attitudes and workplace distractions significantly impact patient safety and teamwork. However, the relationship between these factors remains insufficiently explored. Purpose: This study aims to identify the relationship between healthcare professionals’ managerial attitudes and distractions in the operating room. Methods: A mixed‐methods research design was employed. Quantitative data were collected using a descriptive and cross‐sectional approach, while qualitative data were obtained through a phenomenological design. 82 healthcare professionals in the operating room of a hospital were involved in the study. The Operating Room Management Attitude Scale and the Distractions in Surgery Index were used for quantitative assessment and analyzed via SPSS 22.0. Semistructured in‐depth interviews provided qualitative data, which were evaluated using content analysis. Results: Managerial attitudes were identified as key determinants of team dynamics and workplace distractions. The total mean score of the Operating Room Management Attitude Scale was 148.95 ± 37.5, with the most affected subscales being stress and fatigue (30.85 ± 7.46) and work values (28.48 ± 8.12). The most common sources of distraction included temperature (62.68%), unavailable or not working equipment (57.8%), and tiredness (68.9%). Furthermore, inadequate organizational structures, communication deficiencies, and environmental factors contributed to increased distraction levels. Leadership style directly affected employees’ job satisfaction and stress levels. Conclusions: Implications for practice: Implementing effective management strategies, ensuring a balanced distribution of workload, and minimizing distractions in the operating room can enhance patient safety by improving the efficiency and well‐being of healthcare professionals. Future research should focus on evaluating the effectiveness of targeted interventions to mitigate these challenges.

The preanalytical phase is considered the most error-prone part of laboratory testing and significantly contributes to medical errors. Specimen rejections during this phase can delay diagnosis and treatment, compromise patient safety, and increase healthcare costs. Understanding the causes of these rejections is essential for quality improvement. This study aimed to determine specimen rejection rates during the preanalytical phase and to explore nurses’ experiences related to these rejections. A mixed-methods design was used. In the quantitative phase, one-year retrospective data were collected from the microbiology and biochemistry laboratories of a university hospital. In the qualitative phase, individual in-depth interviews were conducted with nurses working in clinics with the highest rejection rates. Thematic analysis was used to evaluate qualitative data. A total of 14,290 specimens were rejected in the biochemistry laboratory and 4,220 in the microbiology laboratory. The most frequent reasons for rejection were insufficient volume, hemolysis, and coagulation. Three main themes emerged from the interviews: [1] challenges in the preanalytical process [2], contributing factors to errors, and [3] emotional impact on nurses. Nurses highlighted issues such as lack of institutional support, inadequate training, patient cooperation difficulties, communication gaps, and stressful work environments. Emotional consequences included frustration, fatigue, and anxiety. Preanalytical errors result from a combination of institutional, interpersonal, and environmental factors. These errors not only affect lab performance but also harm nurses’ psychological well-being. Interventions should aim to improve workflow, enhance training, and offer emotional support to reduce rejection rates and promote patient safety. Not applicable.

Aim: This study aimed to explore the relationship between ethical attitudes and compassion fatigue experienced by nurses in surgical intensive care units. Methods: It is mixed-design research. The study was conducted with 38 nurses working in the surgical intensive care units of a university hospital who agreed to participate in the study. Quantitative data were collected using the Nurse Information Form, the Ethical Attitude Scale for Nursing Care, and the Compassion Fatigue–Short Scale. Qualitative data were collected using a semistructured questionnaire, through individual interviews with 9 volunteer nurses in surgical intensive care units. Results: The study revealed that nurses exhibited high levels of ethical attitudes in nursing care along with high levels of compassion fatigue. During the qualitative data analysis, 4 key themes emerged: ethical approaches in surgical intensive care units, professional quality of life in nurses, the reflections of compassion fatigue on ethical behavior, and nurses’ well-being. Conclusions: It was concluded that when compassion fatigue increased in nurses in surgical intensive care units, ethical attitudes in nursing care decreased. Therefore, compassion fatigue can be addressed by programs that support nurses’ well-being, such as meditation, deep breathing, self-compassion exercises, and so on. It can be reduced.

There are limited studies reporting the opinions of residents from three main sciences which are surgical, internal medicine and basic medical sciences in Turkey. So, we need to reveal more opinions of residents on their trainings during pandemic to manage the trainings well during emerging situations in the future. It is aimed to reveal the opinions of residents from all main sciences on their training in medicine given at Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Medicine during the COVID-19 pandemic process. The study was designed as qualitative phenomenological study,and includes focus group interviews. It was conducted between April 2021- March 2022. Gender, department and duration of residency were taken into account in order to ensure diversity in the determination of the participants. Interviews were conducted online through the Zoom. Content analyses was done by researchers. In our study, five focus group interviews were conducted with a total of 38 residents. The five themes that emerged are as follows: changes in education; health care delivery climate; scientific activities; emotions/feelings; structural problems, in education programs. It is necessary to design the frequency, duration and content intensity of online training activities. Scientific research and thesis studies have been adversely affected by the pandemic. However, the online scientific meetings provided during the pandemic were seen as important education opportunities. ‘Feeling of decreased emotional resillience’ is a new emerged emotional problem. The positive developments in the attitudes and behaviors of the society towards the health professionals during the pandemic contributed positively to the emotions of the residents.

In the provision of health services, health institutions should be perceived as an enterprise to use limited resources most effectively and efficiently, evaluate them optimally and ensure production efficiency. Therefore, cost information enables the most efficient utilization of resources in hospital enterprises and allows managers to use decision-making mechanisms most accurately. This study was conducted to determine and compare the costs of prolonged hospitalizations in the cardiovascular surgery intensive care unit of a university hospital. Our study was descriptive and retrospective. The hospitalizations in the cardiovascular surgery intensive care unit of the hospital were analyzed according to the prolonged hospitalization criteria determined by the social security institution. 29 extended hospitalization patient bills were determined in three years. The mean age of the prolonged hospitalization of patients was 67 years, the duration of hospitalization was 680 days, and the mean hospitalization day was 18.64. The items with the highest expenditure in prolonged hospitalization of patients were determined as drug costs, general applications and intervention costs, medical consumables costs, and laboratory costs. The increase in costs during the hospitalization and treatment process is mainly due to medication, general practices, interventions, and medical consumables. Related decision-makers should make root-cause analyses, and plans should be made to reduce costs.