The findings show that relatives perform daily tasks that nurses should be performing. They indicate that the hospital should introduce specific staffing policies for reducing families' burden. Our findings could influence future staffing plans of nursing managers, policy makers or health authorities.

The present study is contributing to the development of a better understanding of significant issues related to the experience of bracing therapy. It is clear that scoliosis children/adolescents have to be provided with support during the long period of bracing. It is apparent that those children/adolescents have unmet needs for care and health professionals and policy makers should try to find a way to address those needs.

Objectives:The study aims at exploring the feelings and the experience of fathers about their wife/partner’s delivery.Background:During the last decades birth attendance by fathers is a common phenomenon across many countries. Fathers’ birth attendance may evoke both positive and negative feelings.Methodology:The study was conducted in a city of Northern Greece. The sample consisted of 417 fathers whose wife/partner had given birth during the previous one week to one year. Data were collected using the Kuopio Instrument for Fathers (KIF).Results:Father’s feelings about their wife or partner were very positive as nearly all (82.1%) of the participants were proud to become fathers and agree that they felt love and were grateful to their wife/partner. However, half of the fathers felt anxious and nervous. 40.7% quite agree that the staff was very professional, that they trusted the staff (45%) and that they were grateful to the staff (38.8%). There is correlation between the “feelings related to the wife/partner” and education (r=0.156, p=0.0047), “being afraid during the preparatory visit at the obstetric hospital” (r=-0.238, p=0.009), and “anxiety during the preparatory visit” (r=0.295 p=0.005). The subscale “feelings related to the environment and staff” correlates with “usefulness of preparatory visit” (r=-0.223, p=0.004) and the subscale of “experiences related to delivery” correlates with “usefulness of preparatory visit” (r=-0.357, p=0.001).Conclusions:Our results support the findings of previous studies, which indicated that birth attendance by fathers has evoked positive feelings about their wife/partner, the delivery, the staff and the hospital environment.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between Religiosity, Self-esteem, Stress, and Depression among nursing students, social work students, and early-education students of a Cypriot University. The data were collected using four questionnaires. The results indicate a significant positive association between Depression and Stress. Greater levels of Self-esteem were found to be associated with lower depression levels in correlation analysis, while strength of Religious and Spiritual Beliefs was correlated negatively with depression. The results of the current study highlight the need for early intervention in order to promote students mental well-being.

Medicago sativa L. is a tetraploid perennial forage legume of great agronomical interest. The increasing need for its use under water-deficit conditions as well as low-input systems demands further improvement of its drought tolerance. On the other hand, Medicagoarborea L. is a perennial leguminous shrub, which is knownas a drought-tolerant species. In the present study, drought stress responses of the aforementioned medicago species, along with their hybrid, named Alborea, were comparatively assayed at the morphological, physiological, biochemical, and transcriptional levels. In particular, transcript abundance of representative genes that: (a) control ion transport, intracellular Na + /H + antiporters(NHX1) and rare cold inducible2A (RCI2A); (b) have an osmotic function ∆1-pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthetase 1 (P5CS1); and (c) participate in signaling pathways and control cell growth and leaf function stress-induced mitogen-activated protein kinases kinases (SIMKK), Zinc Finger (ZFN), apetala2/ethylene-responsive element binding (AP2/EREB), basic leucine zipper (bzip) and Medicago sativa Helicase 1(MH1) were evaluated. Under well-watered conditions, the studied population of Alborea showed the highest stem elongation rate and photosynthetic rate that were dramatically reduced under drought conditions compared to M. sativa and M. arborea. Under drought conditions, the studied population of M. arborea showed less reduction of relative water content, all gas-exchange parameters, less lipid peroxidation, and more antioxidant capacity. Moreover, transcriptional analysis demonstrated that the population of M. arborea exhibited significantly higher transcript levels of drought-responsive genes in both leaves and roots under drought stress conditions. M. sativa has better antioxidant capacity than Alborea and had a higher induction of stress-related genes, thus it performs better than Alborea under drought conditions. Among the studied genes, it seems that AP2/EREB play a critical role in the response of the studied population to drought stress.

There is a broad variety of factors that are contributing to the nursing staff shortage. They include low wages, poor image of nursing, job satisfaction, ageing of the nursing workforce and cost reductions. In the Greek National Health System, there is a policy of open-visiting hours in hospitals. Family members stay with the patients for many hours and provide in-hospital informal care. The purpose of this study is to describe the perceptions of nursing staff about the nursing staff shortage and the in-hospital informal care in a Greek oncology hospital. For the data collection we used a 30-item questionnaire. The majority of the participants (82.9%) stated that most patients have a family member staying longer than the official visiting hours for assisting with care. A main reason according to the nurses' opinion (37.4%) is the nursing staff shortage. In addition, most nurses disagree with relatives providing some of the informal caregiving activities. The findings are consistent with the findings of other studies. They might be of interest to Greek health authorities, to nurses and to Greek citizens in order to implement possible solutions to improve the hospitalization in Greek hospitals.

This study aimed at exploring Greek fathers' experiences from their wives/partners' labour and delivery, and their perceptions about aspects of delivery care that need to be improved. It took place at hospital maternity clinics at the greater area of Thessaloniki, Greece. Participants were fathers whose wife/partner had given birth one week to one year before the data collection. The data were collected with the use of the Kuopio Instrument for Fathers (KIF). In this article we present the data obtained by KIF's four open-ended questions, which were analyzed using the method of content analysis. Three core categories emerged: (i) Meaning of presence during the delivery process; (ii) Experiences of the delivery process; and (iii) Suggestions for improving delivery services. Fathers take their role seriously and seek an active participation. Healthcare professionals and health education interventions should take into account the fathers' perspectives and aim to meet their needs.

BackgroundInformal care is common in many countries, especially in Greece, where families provide care in hospitals. Health education and informational needs are important factors for family members which are often underestimated by nursing staff. The aim of this study was to compare the perceptions of the nurses and the in-hospital informal caregivers about the in-hospital informal caregivers' knowledge and informational needs, as well as the factors that influence these perceptions.MethodsThis was a non-experimental descriptive study conducted in three general hospitals in Greece. The sample consisted of 320 nurses and 370 in-hospital informal caregivers who completed questionnaires. Descriptive statistics were analyzed using t-tests; group comparisons were conducted using ANOVA.ResultsThe score of the questionnaire for health education and informational needs was significantly greater for informal caregivers (57.1 ± 6.9 and 26.6 ± 2.8) than for nurses (53.4 ± 5.7 and 22.4 ± 3.1) (p < 0.001). For the nursing staff, the factors that influence the informational needs of patients' caregivers were level of education and working experience, while for the caregivers the level of education was independently associated with the score for the health education needs. Finally, age, marital status, and level of education of informal caregivers' were independently associated with informational needs.ConclusionsThe in-hospital informal caregivers perceived that they have more educational and informational needs than the nurses did. The findings of this study also show that the nursing staff has to identify the needs of in-hospital informal caregivers in order to be able to meet these needs.