This study raises attention regarding the important roles nurses can play in cardiac rehabilitation and the unique way for nurses to meet the rehabilitative care needs of coronary heart disease patients. Furthermore, the hospital-home bridging nature of the programme also created a model for interfacing the acute care and community rehabilitative care.

PurposeTo investigate the current status of diabetic self-management behavior and the factors influencing this behavior in Chengdu, a typical city in western China.MethodsWe performed stratified sampling in 6 urban districts of Chengdu. We used questionnaires concerning self-management knowledge, self-management beliefs, self-management efficacy, social support, and self-management behavior to investigate patients with T2DM from August to November 2011. All of the data were analyzed using the SPSS 17.0 statistical package.ResultsWe enrolled a total of 364 patients in the present study. The median score of self-management behavior was 111.00, the interquartile range was 100.00–119.00, and the index score was 77.77. Self-management was described as “good” in 46%, “fair” in 45%, and “poor” in 6% of patients. A multiple-factor analysis identified age (OR, 0.43; 95% CI, 0.20–0.91; P = 0.026), education in “foot care” (OR, 0.42; 95% CI, 0.18–0.99; P = 0.048), self-management knowledge (OR, 0.86; 95% CI, 0.80–0.92; P<0.001), self-management belief (OR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.87–0.97; P = 0.002), self-efficacy (OR, 0.93; 95% CI, 0.90–0.96; P<0.001), and social support (OR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.41–0.94; P = 0.023) as positive factors. Negative factors included diabetes duration (5–9 years: OR, 14.82; 95% CI, 1.64–133.73; P = 0.016; and ≥10 years: OR, 10.28; 95% CI, 1.06–99.79; P = 0.045) and hospitalization experience (OR, 2.96; 95% CI, 1.64–5.36; P<0.001).ConclusionWe observed good self-management behavior in patients with T2DM in Chengdu. When self-management education is provided, age, education, knowledge, belief, self-efficacy, and social support should be considered to offer more appropriate intervention and to improve patients' behavior.

BackgroundThe 15-item care transition measure (CTM-15) is a reliable and valid instrument assessing the quality of care transition from patients’ perspectives. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the CTM-15 and the CTM-3 (a 3-item short version of the CTM-15) in Mainland China.Methodology/FindingsThis was a cross-sectional study with a convenience sample of 646 patients in a general tertiary-level hospital in Chengdu, China. The results indicated that the Cronbach’s α values of the Chinese version of the two measures were 0.90 and 0.56, and the test-retest reliability values were 0.91 and 0.87, respectively. Three factors were extracted for the CTM-15 in Chinese populations. The CTM-15 and the CTM-3 scores discriminated well between patients with and without re-hospitalization for their index condition. The CTM-15 and the CTM-3 had significant positive relationships with self-rated health status. The CTM-3 score was significantly related to the CTM-15 score, and the CTM-3 score accounted for 64.23% of the variance of the CTM-15 score.Conclusions/SignificanceThis study has demonstrated the psychometric properties of the CTM-15 and the CTM-3 in Mainland China. Although the Cronbach’s α value of the CTM-3 is suboptimal, it has exhibited high test-retest reliability, convergent validity and criterion validity. Therefore, the CTM-3 can substitute the CTM-15 as a performance measurement tool when the sample size is large enough to compensate its suboptimal reliability or the reduced response burden is a concern.

The morphology change and the corresponding molecular mechanism of polystyrene (PS)/poly(vinyl methyl ether) (PVME) blends induced by hydrophilic or hydrophobic nanoparticles were studied. It was found that there was a threshold of hydrophilic silica loading for the occurrence of network–droplet morphological transition in PS/PVME blends. On the contrary, the viscoelastic network could sustain for a much longer time in the blends with higher loading of hydrophobic silica. Rheological measurements suggested that the networking of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles in the PVME-rich phase would significantly reduce the dynamic asymmetry of two phases and make the compositional asymmetry the dominant factor in controlling the morphology development during phase separation. However, adding the hydrophobic silica fillers would result in an increase of dynamic asymmetry and a decrease in compositional asymmetry because of their selective dispersion in the PS-rich phase, both stabilizing the continuous network structure.

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