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To study and determine the educational needs of nurses after graduation in order to make them further capable, aims at promotion of their occupational standards and betterment of this profession. By means of this study we can identify their needs and make necessary planning to reduce the resultant shortcommings and problems. The present research is a descriptive and analytical study conducted to survey the educational needs of nurses regarding non-pharmacological methods of controlling chronic pans in patients at medical surgical wards of the hospitals of Tehran University Medical of Sciences. A total of 119 nurses working at one of these wards participated in this research. The tool for gathering the information was a three-part questionnaire. The first part deal with individual particulars, the second part was about questions regarding the feeling needs of nurses an the third part was about questions regarding the educational needs of nurses. The findings showed: As for the feeling needs, nurses needed training , as for the level of educational needs regarding the concept of pain (69.7%), characteristics of chronic pains (52.9%), guided imagery method (50.4%) of nurses were in need of a high level of training and regarding the progressive muscle relaxation (68.9%) of nurses were in need of a medium level of training. The results revealed the connection between some individual particulars with the level of educational need, to the extent the age, clinical work experience, work experience in medical and surgical ward and the type of ward affected the level of educational need, and by using the Pearson Coefficient a meaningful statistical difference appeared, in other words, as the years of service increases , the level of knowledge decrease and the educational needs rise up.

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Background & Aim: Pain is one of the important complication of chronic diseases such as cancer. Purpose of this study is to investigation of two non-pharmacological methods, progressive muscle relaxation and music, on pain relief in patients suffer from cancer.

Methods & Materials: This research is a intervention clinical trial which was done in a hospital affiliated to Tehran University of Medical Sciences. In this study, 100 cancerous patients that have inclusion criteria were selected by simple sampling method. The participants into two groups allocated, 50 patients in progressive muscle relaxation, and 50 patients in music group. Data collection tools were questionnaire, pain level recorded sheet, taps with headphone (is produced by Sony company) and music box including light music consist of classical, mild and Iranian traditional music. Questionnaire was designed in two parts, demographically characteristics and disease characteristics. Data were collected by interview and patient self report. After adequate education to two groups, asked them to perform that method 30minet per day until 3 days. Then, pain level, at previous 24 hours until 3 days were assessed and recorded in related sheet. Analysis of data were analyzed by SPSS software, inferential and descriptive statistics such as Mann Whitney, chi Square, Fisher’s exact test, and Friedman.

Results: The finding of research showed in both relaxation and music groups there were significant differences in pain level before and after intervention (p<.001). Also there were significant differences between two groups in pain level (p=0.016). It means that pain relief in relaxation group was more significant.

Conclusion: According to the findings of this research, although both progressive muscle relaxation and music are effective and decreasing of pain level but progressive muscle relaxation is more effective than music.

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Background & Aim: Anxiety is a common experience which is felt as uneasiness, non-specific threat, and activation of autonomic nervous system. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of muscular relaxation on anxiety level of patients underwent cardiac catheterization.

Methods & Materials: In this clinical trial, 118 patients who were expected to have a cardiac catheterization were recruited from an educational hospital at Tehran University of Medical Science. The participants were allocated to two groups, including muscular relaxation group (50 patients), and control group (68 patients). Data were collected using a questionnaire, and a self-report paper for recording anxiety level. Anxiety level was recorded one hour before cardiac catheterization in two groups. Then, the intervention group was asked to listen to the Benson muscle relaxation guide direction tape for 20 minutes through headphone. After using muscle relaxation in the intervention group and immediately before cardiac catheterization, the anxiety level of the respondents was recorded once more. Control group received standard nursing cares. Data were analyzed using χ², Fisher&aposs exact test, Kruscalwallis, Man-Whitney and Wilcoxon statistical tests in the SPSS.

Results: There were no significant difference between two groups in demographic characteristics and anxiety level before the intervention and one hour before cardiac catheterization. After the intervention, the anxiety level was significantly reduced in the intervention group (P<0.001) while it increased in the control group.

Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, Benson muscle relaxation significantly decreased anxiety level in patients who were expected to go for cardiac catheterization.

 

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Background & Aim: Restless leg syndrome (RLS) is one of the common complications in patients under treatment with hemodialysis. Progressive muscle relaxation is a method which has been designed for reducing patients’ stress, pain and anxiety. The present study aimed to determine the effect of progressive muscle relaxation on the severity of RLS in hemodialysis patients.

Methods & Materials: In this quasi-experimental study (IRCT2015102824769N1), 74 hemodialysis patients were selected by convenience sampling method and divided into intervention and control groups based on records numbers. The intervention group was trained in progressive muscle relaxation technique in two half-hour sessions and they were asked to practice it twice a day for one month. RLS severity was measured using the standardized RLS questionnaire. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistical tests (independent and paired t-test, analysis of co-variance) using SPSS software version 23.

Results: There was no significant difference in the distribution of variables in the intervention and control group before intervention (P>0.05). Before the intervention, RLS severity score was 28.24±7.33 in the intervention group and 25.57±9.85 in the control group (P=0.189). After the intervention, the score for the intervention group was reduced to 10.67±5.66 (P>0.001) while there was no significant change in the control group after the intervention (26.16±9.69). Also, a significant difference was observed between the two groups in the mean score of RLS severity after removing the effect of RLS severity on pretest (P>0.0001).

Conclusion: The use of progressive muscle relaxation technique reduces RLS severity in patients under treatment with hemodialysis. Therefore, this technique is recommended to be used as one of the non-pharmacological methods to improve RLS in these patients.