Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

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Nurses' ability to communicate with patients is essential for the effectiveness of the nursing process. This factor is more significant in the case of adolescent patients. Appropriate communication between adolescent patients and health care staff is crucial, since it contributes to the patients disclosing important personal information, and helps nurses communicate necessary information, viewpoints or skills through health promotion measures. The present study aimed to draw a comparison between nurses’ and hospitalized adolescents’ understanding of the significance of the nurse-patient relationship and the observance thereof. In this cross-sectional study, 175 nurses and 180 hospitalized adolescents (12-18 years of age) were selected through simple random sampling respectively, all of whom met the criteria necessary to enter the study. The data was collected from children’s hospitals affiliated with the Tehran University of Medical Sciences, and the data collection tools were self-report questionnaires. Data analysis was performed using the SPSS statistical software. Findings of this study showed that there was a significant statistical difference between the understanding of nurses and hospitalized adolescents regarding the importance of the nurse-patient relationship (P=0.019) and its observance (P0.001), and the nurses scored a better understanding than adolescent patients in both cases. This paper also investigated the priorities of each group regarding the significance and observance of the nurse-patient relationship. The results showed that nurses viewed explaining the necessary follow-up care after discharge as the most important part, while adolescent patients believed that proper verbal communication and being listened to patiently were of great significance. Both groups seemed to observe proper verbal and non-verbal communication according to the results of this paper. The findings of this research proved that nurses can be directed to achieve the less observed objectives that are viewed by adolescent patients as significant in order to eliminate the obstacles in proper nurse-patient relationship.

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During the Qajar era, most cities, including Esfahan, suffered poor hygiene conditions due to an overall lack of hygiene facilities. Esfahan was a big city that faced a shortage of hospitals, pharmacies and physicians, and this meant that large numbers of people would die as a result of outbreaks of communicable diseases. The new government, therefore, began a series of actions with the purpose of promoting hygiene in the city, including establishment of new hospitals, systematizing pharmacies and physicians, mass vaccinations, improvements in the hygiene condition of public places such as bathhouses, eateries, inns and slaughterhouses. For the most part, such measures resulted in a growth of population during those years. The present paper aimed to shed light on the hygiene conditions prevalent in the city of Esfahan during the first Pahlavi period by using historic documents, newspapers and other sources available. It employed a library research method along with comparison and analysis of existing sources, original ones in particular. To this end, the required data was initially collected and then organized and analyzed, and this historical research was ultimately structured based on the inferred results.

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With the development of professionalism in modern-day nursing, concepts such as accountability and civil responsibility have found a special place in nursing, since responsibility is an intrinsic part of this profession. Accountability typically brings civil responsibility, which means an individual can be held legally responsible for injury they have caused to another person. Due to the autonomy that nurses enjoy in their practice, they have legal responsibilities, which in turn expose them to complaints and lawsuits on grounds of negligence more often than in the past. The objective of this paper was to familiarize nurses with the concept of civil responsibility, and to help them prevent the damages arising from it, as well as to ensure patients’ safety and rights. This was an analytical study that examined the concept of nurses’ civil responsibility based on books and articles on the subject. The study will first explicate the general definition of civil responsibility, and then proceed to explain its application to the nursing profession, and the more common stages of litigation, prosecution and defense. The nursing profession today can benefit from a modern outlook on civil responsibility and nursing errors in order to improve teaching methods in providing better patient care and reduce errors. This can eventually enhance the quality of care, and lead to a decrease in nurses’ civil responsibilities and prevention of a waste of public resources.