PURPOSE
This study was undertaken to identify which delirium screening instrument would be more useful in clinical practice.
METHODS
Data were collected from 118 nurses from six hospitals in five provinces in Korea. For the delirium screening three instruments were compared: NEECHAM Confusion Scale (NEECHAM), Nursing Delirium Screening Scale (Nu-DESC), Delirium Observation Scale (DOS). The MMSE-K was used for concurrent validity. The nurse subjects were surveyed as to the practical clinical value of each instrument. Cronbach's alpha coefficient and Kuder-Richardson 20 were used to confirm the reliability.
RESULTS
The range of three scales reliability was .70~.82 and the range of correlation coefficient was .63~.82 with MMSE-K. For sensitivity of NEECHAM, Nu-DESC and DOS was 1.00, 1.00 and 0.81 respectively and specificity NEECHAM, Nu-DESC and DOS was 0.88, 0.89 and 0.89 respectively. Nurses rated the practical use of the DOS scale as significantly easier to use than the NEECHAM and Nu-DESC.
CONCLUSION
NEECHAM, Nu-DESC and DOS scales were acceptable in terms of reliability, validity, sensitivity and specificity. However, nurses rated the DOS scale as easier scale to use and had more relevance to their practice.

Citations

• Evaluation of Clinical Usefulness of Delirium Assessment Tools for Elderly Patients after Neurosurgery
  Su-Jung Kim, Jun-Ah Song
  Journal of Korean Gerontological Nursing.2015; 17(1): 38.     CrossRef

PURPOSE
This study was conducted to explore nursing education modality for facilitating undergraduate students' critical thinking within the Korean nursing education context.
METHODS
Data were collected from four group interviews from two focus groups, which were composed of six nursing professors in each group. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis.
RESULTS
Five themes with 13 sub-themes involving 10 categories were delineated. The five themes were managing shared resources, a supportive system in preparing qualified faculty, reflective thinking (self-directed learning), theory courses for understanding nursing resources, and clinical practicum for exercising critical thinking.
CONCLUSION
A nursing educational model for facilitating critical thinking within Korean context was suggested. This could be used as an accelerator in developing nursing undergraduate course programs for critical thinking in Korea.

PURPOSE
This study was conducted to examine the knowledge level and assessment experience of nurses in regards to delirium, and to utilize the study results as baseline data for planning delirium education programs for nurses.
METHODS
Subjects were 465 nurses who were working in a general hospital. A 'delirium related knowledge and assessment experience' questionnaire was used to collect data.
RESULTS
Knowledge levels regarding delirium averaged 70 out of 100, and at each domain, they scored 87 for etiology of delirium, 62 for symptoms, and 69 for nursing management. The knowledge level of delirium was significantly different according to educational level (F=3.851, p=.022), past education related to geriatrics(t=2.471, p=.014), and awareness of need for in-service education on geriatric nursing(F=2.663, p=.032). About 85% of nurses had past experience of dealing with delirious patients and only 7.7% of nurses used delirious state assessment tools.
CONCLUSION
According to the above results, it is necessary, not only to provide delirium related educational programs for nurses, but also to emphasize the usefulness of applying the assessment tool.

PURPOSE
The purpose of the study is to investigate the correlation between burden, health status and well-being in spouse caregivers of patients with stroke. METHOD: The subjects of this study were 160 spouse caregivers registered at general hospital in Seoul and Seongnam. The data were collected from July 2th to October 30th, 2003. The Suh & Oh's burden scale, Yang's health status scale and Park's well-being scale were employed to measure burden, health status and wellbeing respectively. Collected data were analyzed using SPSS 12 version to obtain summary statistics for the descriptive analysis, Pearson Correlation, and Stepwise Multiple Regression. RESULTS: 1. The mean score of the degree of burden, health status and well-being were 3.52, 5.92 and 3.64 points. 2. The burden of the subjects were significantly negative correlated with psycho- logical health status(r=-.482. p<.01) and wellbeing(r=-.455, p<.01). 3. With the result of stepwise multiple regression, psychological health status and wellbeing were the main variables which could explain burden by 27.1%. CONCLUSION: The findings of this study will provide practical guidelines for developing emotional nursing interventions for the spouses taking care of CVA patients who would experience a heavy burden and distress.