Biomedical subjects

C A Reilly

Publications and source records attributed to C A Reilly.

41 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

PubMedDate not supplied

Problems of persons with HIV/AIDS hospitalized for Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.

The authors of this prospective study describe the problems of persons living with HIV/AIDS hospitalized for Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) (N = 90) and examine how the problems change over time. Data were obtained from four sources and were classified into major problem categories. The largest mean number of problems were reported in the category of PCP. Specific psychosocial problems were more likely to be reported in the patient and nurse interviews than in the chart and intershift report. The study findings validate the physical symptoms addressed in the published care plans and guidelines for caring for patients with PCP. The study identified the limitation of using the patient record as the only data source in determining nursing care needs and emphasized the importance of the patients perspective.

AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Assessing and managing pain in AIDS care: the patient perspective.

Although the prevalence and complexity of pain management in HIV/AIDS has been described in the literature, little is known about the management of pain from the patient perspective. This study used a set of standardized instruments, a medication chart audit, and a semistructured interview to elicit patients' self-reports of pain and patients' perceptions of nursing and self-care pain management strategies and examined potential physiological and psychosocial correlates of pain. The sample of 249 AIDS patients from three types of care settings (hospital, home care, skilled nursing facility) reported a modest overall current pain intensity (M = .14, range = 0-1). They reported experiencing pain in all body parts as measured by a body outline and characterized their pain with an average of 8.96 words from a list of 67 words. A lower pain rating was correlated with higher ratings on quality of life and perceived psychological support. An audit of the medication record revealed that the study sample received the following medications: narcotic analgesics (49%), nonnarcotic analgesics (47%), and antidepressants (22%). In a semistructured interview, medications were rated as effective by 80% of patients experiencing pain who stated that their health care providers included pain medications as part of the patient's pain management plan. Patients reported few nonpharmacologic self-care or health care provider interventions to manage their pain, and the effectiveness ratings of the interventions demonstrated wide variability. The study findings suggest that because pain was related to quality of life ratings and the pain management strategies reported by patients were not completely effective, further work is needed to examine pain management strategies that incorporate both pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions with particular attention to self-care interventions. In addition, the data suggest that nursing assessments should include questions aimed at eliciting potentially harmful (e.g., street drugs, self-prescribed medications) strategies that patients may be using to manage their pain.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

PubMedDate not supplied

A comparison of patient and nurse ratings of human immunodeficiency virus-related signs and symptoms.

Since management strategies are guided by the assessment of the symptom experience, agreement between patients' and nurses' perceptions of symptoms is central to clinical management. In this study, acquired immune deficiency syndrome patients' perceptions of 41 human immunodeficiency virus-related signs and symptoms were compared in 207 pairs of ratings by patients (n = 207) and nurses (n = 103). Ten symptoms were reported by 50% or more of the patients. Mean patient intensity ratings for all signs and symptoms, with the exception of anxiety, were higher than nurse ratings. Using patients' ratings as the gold standard, chance-corrected estimates of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of the nurses' ratings suggested that nurses' ratings poorly predicted patients' symptom experiences.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Terms used by nurses to describe patient problems: can SNOMED III represent nursing concepts in the patient record?

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the terms used by nurses in a variety of data sources and to test the feasibility of using SNOMED III to represent nursing terms. DESIGN: Prospective research design with manual matching of terms to the SNOMED III vocabulary. MEASUREMENTS: The terms used by nurses to describe patient problems during 485 episodes of care for 201 patients hospitalized for Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia were identified. Problems from four data sources (nurse interview, intershift report, nursing care plan, and nurse progress note/flowsheet) were classified based on the substantive area of the problem and on the terminology used to describe the problem. A test subset of the 25 most frequently used terms from the two written data sources (nursing care plan and nurse progress note/flowsheet) were manually matched to SNOMED III terms to test the feasibility of using that existing vocabulary to represent nursing terms. RESULTS: Nurses most frequently described patient problems as signs/symptoms in the verbal nurse interview and intershift report. In the written data sources, problems were recorded as North American Nursing Diagnosis Association (NANDA) terms and signs/symptoms with similar frequencies. Of the nursing terms in the test subset, 69% were represented using one or more SNOMED III terms.

Delivery of Health Care↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Variables, variability, and variations research: implications for medical informatics.

Variations research is one important strategy in the quality management movement designed to improve the quality of health care and to control costs. Information systems are being utilized in variations research to provide an array of potential variables, to provide measures of the variability inherent in these variables, and to assist with the study of the linkages of patient and provider characteristics with interventions and outcomes. This article presents a systems model of inputs, processes, and outcomes with explication of factors related to client, provider, and setting as a heuristic strategy for variable specification. The implications of variable specification, the design and measurement of variability, and the key issue of control in variations research are linked with a discussion of the implications for medical informatics.

Decision Support Systems, Management↗