The purpose of this study was to identify risk factors for pediatric inpatients falls.

The study was a matched case-control design. The participants were 279 patients under the age of 6 who were admitted between January 1, 2004 and December 31, 2009. Through chart reviews, 93 pediatric patients who fell and 186 ones who did not fall were paired by gender, age, diagnosis, and length of stay. Five experts evaluated the 38 fall risk factors selected by the researchers.

In a general hospital, pediatric patients with secondary diagnosis, tests that need the patient to be moved, intravenous lines, hyperactivity, anxiolytics, sedatives and hypnotics, and general anesthetics showed significance for falls on adjusted-odds ratios. Conditional logistic regression analysis was performed to elucidate the factors that influence pediatric inpatient falls. The probability of falls increased with hyperactivity and general weakness. Patients who didn't have tests that required them to be moved and intravenous line had a higher risk of falls.

These findings provide information that is relevant in developing fall risk assessment tools and prevention programs for pediatric inpatient falls.

This study was done to compare the rates of hemolysis and repeated sampling in blood samples obtained by a syringe needle versus a vacuum tube needle.

A randomized, prospective study was used to evaluate the differences between the two blood sampling methods. The study group consisted of patients seen in the emergency department (ED) for blood sampling to determine electrolyte level. ED patients were randomly assigned to either the syringe group or the vacuum tube group. All blood samples were collected by experienced ED nurses and hemolysis was determined by experienced laboratory technologists. Data were analyzed using Fisher's exact test and binary logistic regression.

One hundred forty-five valid samples were collected (74 in the syringe group versus 71 in the vacuum tube group). 5 of 74 (6.8%) blood samples in the syringe group and 8 of 71 (11.3%) in the vacuum tube group hemolyzed. Repeated blood sampling occurred for 2 of 74 (2.7%) and 3 of 71 (4.2%) in each group respectively. There were no significant differences in rates of hemolysis and repeated sampling between two groups (B=1.97, p=.204; B=2.36, p=.345).

Venipuncture with syringe needles can be recommended for ED nurses to obtain blood samples.

This study was done to examine effects of Nei-Guan acupressure on nausea, vomiting and level of satisfaction for gynecological surgery patients who were using a patient-controlled analgesia (PCA).

For this study, 51 patients were assigned to one of three groups, a control group (17 patients), experimental group 1 (finger acupressure group) (17 patients), and experimental group 2 (relief band group) (17 patients). The data were collected for 24 hr in the recovery room of a university hospital located in Seoul. The 6 hr-intervals including the time of leaving the recovery room were taken into consideration.

The occurrence of nausea between the experimental group with Nei-Guan acupressure treatment and the control group was different. However, there was no difference in nausea and vomiting control or level of patient satisfaction between the finger acupressure group and the relief band group.

Nei-Guan acupressure is recommended for nursing practice as a way for alleviating the opioid-induced nausea and accelerating the recovery of patients who are using PCA after surgery.

The purpose of this study was to identify cancer-related symptom clusters and to validate the conceptual meanings of the revealed symptom clusters in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

This study was a cross-sectional survey and methodological study. Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (N=194) were recruited from a medical center in Seoul. The 20-item Symptom Checklist was used to assess patients' symptom severity. Selected symptoms were factored using principal-axis factoring with varimax rotation. To validate the revealed symptom clusters, the statistical differences were analyzed by status of patients' performance status, Child-Pugh classification, and mood state among symptom clusters.

Fatigue was the most prevalent symptom (97.4%), followed by lack of energy and stomach discomfort. Patients' symptom severity ratings fit a four-factor solution that explained 61.04% of the variance. These four factors were named pain-appetite cluster, fatigue cluster, itching-constipation cluster, and gastrointestinal cluster. The revealed symptom clusters were significantly different for patient performance status (ECOG-PSR), Child-Pugh class, anxiety, and depression.

Knowing these symptom clusters may help nurses to understand reasonable mechanisms for the aggregation of symptoms. Efficient symptom management of disease-related and treatment-related symptoms is critical in promoting physical and emotional status in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.