Rachele La Sala | Università degli Studi di Parma (Italy) (original) (raw)

Papers by Rachele La Sala

European heart journal supplements, Apr 1, 2024

PubMed, Oct 16, 2023

Background and aim: The Nursing undergraduate degree educational program represents an intensive ... more Background and aim: The Nursing undergraduate degree educational program represents an intensive and complex course, and includes a number of professionalizing practical internships, and for these reasons it requires an action to support and improve. Coaching is based on the premise that people have personal strengths and abilities which, through a interview, can be directed to solving their problems. Several studies demonstrate the efficacy of Health Coaching in different University, but never have been measured benefits regard skills improving. The objective of the study is to assess the impact of a health coaching program on the nursing students. Method: A pre-post quasi-experimental study was conducted, involving the activation of a Health Coaching Program for 25 nursing students selected through convenience sampling, based on their fulfillment of the inclusion criteria. The Health Coaching Program was administered by the Health Coaching Academy. Result: This study also evaluated parameters such as: level of concentration in study, motivation, problem solving and reorganization skills, study organization skills, psycho-physical-emotional state comprehension, decision-making skills and self-esteem, noting a statistically significant increase post-HC program. A statistically significant improvement was also found in the students' perception of their own stress management skills after the course. Conclusion: This study strengthens the hypothesis that HC programs contribute to improving performance of nursing students. Those conclusions need to be corroborated by future studies on the topic to further support the hypothesis that programs of HC within the learning nursing contexts can lead to a tangible benefit for students of the health professions.

Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, Oct 26, 2022

Background and aim: Medication administration errors represent a topic of great scientific intere... more Background and aim: Medication administration errors represent a topic of great scientific interest. Medication administration is considered by nursing students a complex process during which it is easy to make mistakes; therefore, institutional measures have been adopted in order to reduce medication errors. However, it remains a critical issue in nursing practice for which several causes have been identified, including environmental factors and individual knowledge. Mistakes can be made by nurses and especially by students who must cope with additional causal factors including anxiety management. The aim was to investigate state anxiety levels among nursing students when it comes to medication administration. Research design and methods: An observational study involving a convenience sample of 150 nursing students from a Northern Italy University has been conducted; they were asked to complete a questionnaire to measure the levels of state anxiety in relation to medication administration. Results. There were no particularly high levels of state anxiety among students associated with medication administration; however, state anxiety levels were slightly higher in third-year students than in second-year students, and this is most likely due to the growing complexity of the medication administration process compared to the lack of experience. Conclusions. Although the results don't show statistically significant data, the effectiveness of nursing education plays a crucial role in reducing medication errors, which is why it is essential to provide suitable tools for the professionals of the future and invest in clinical simulations.

Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, 2021

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE WORK Reusable tourniquets should be considered and used in clinical pra... more BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE WORK Reusable tourniquets should be considered and used in clinical practice as semi-critical devices, as they are colonized by potentially pathogenic agents, a possible cause of care-related infections. The aim of the study was to analyse the management of tourniquets in the clinical reality of wards, investigating the aspects related to their use in venepuncture procedures, the cleaning process after their use and storage. METHODS It has been conducted an observational study with a questionnaire on a sample of nurses (N = 73) and nursing students (N = 60) recruited in a hospital and in an University of northern Italy. RESULTS Data revealed a very positive attitude regarding the high standards of hand hygiene among nurses and nursing students sampled; the critical issues concern the lack of shared protocols or guidelines for the management of tourniquets that lead to discussion both on their use in clinical practice and on the disinfection process after us...

Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, 2015

Health care workers, especially those who are part of the OS core, are essential in the delivery ... more Health care workers, especially those who are part of the OS core, are essential in the delivery of services, as they represent the institution at the time of the contact with the user and they represent also the image of the organization. Health administrations, therefore, are called to improve the performance through a better motivation and satisfaction of the staff, in view of two strategic aspects: job satisfaction of professionals and team collaboration. Between January and September 2014, a survey at the OU (UUOO) intensive care and sub intensive has been made inside three hospitals in Emilia Romagna. It' s been a multicentre cross-sectional quantitative study by administering a self-report questionnaire designed to investigate the different constructs. On 742 questionnaires were spread 454 professionals gave it back (response rate = 73%). Of those, 273 (60.1%) were nurses, 119 (26.2%) were physicians and 62 (13.7%) were healthcare operators. 62 (13.7%) Job Satisfaction w...

Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, Feb 13, 2023

Background and aim: University education plays an important role in the preparation of future nur... more Background and aim: University education plays an important role in the preparation of future nurses, especially in the care of dying patients, which is one of the most emotionally engaging aspects. The objectives of the study were to describe the attitudes of students in end-of-life care and to analyze the possible relationship with some socio-demographic variables, through an observational study. Methods: Preliminarily, an analysis of the educational context of the Nursing Course of the University of Parma was started, through a comparison of the university course with the recommendations of the MIUR concerning the teaching and learning of Palliative Care and Pain Therapy. Subsequently, a questionnaire containing the Frommelt Attitude Toward Care of the Dying Scale Form B and some socio-demographic context variables was administered to a sample of 109 students belonging to the CoS of Nursing in Parma. Results: From the data collected, it emerged that university planning partly reflects the recommendations of the MIUR and how, on average, nursing students have described positive attitudes in all the dimensions investigated. Interesting is the presence of a positive relationship between the personal experiences of bereavement and the attitudes of the students. Conclusions: Nurses are essential in ensuring the quality of care provided to patients at the end of life; Nursing training in Palliative Care and Pain Therapy should include a complete and varied program (frontal activity, simulation, internship paths...) in order to develop positive student attitudes associated with high levels of satisfaction and improvement of the quality of care provided.

Acta Bio Medica : Atenei Parmensis, 2021

Background and aim: Little is known about the students’ engagement in the training experience and... more Background and aim: Little is known about the students’ engagement in the training experience and how it is lived by the health professional students. We aim at building a theoretical model of the engagement process starting from their lived experiences with Grounded Theory approach. Methods: In-depth qualitative interviews are conducted with 12 students from the Master Degree Courses in Nursing, Physiotherapy and Prevention Techniques in the environment and in the workplace, who had carried out and/or were doing internships in the same territory (2nd and 3rd year). Results The health professions’ student engagement in the training program is developed in three main phases: initial phase, central phase and final phase, where emotions, behaviours, awareness contribute to the development of the entire engagement process with different relevance. The intertwining of these different components that develop along the stages of the experience gives life to the core category: growing throu...

Acta Bio Medica : Atenei Parmensis, 2019

Background and aim: As part of the Nursing Degree Course, the “internship” period represents a st... more Background and aim: As part of the Nursing Degree Course, the “internship” period represents a strategic lever to systemize the fundamental combination of theoretical study and nursing practice. However, only a few studies have examined in depth students’ perception of this experience. The aim of the study was to assess the quality of the places in which the University of Parma’s Nursing students did their internships based on their experience. Methods: Through a quantitative and qualitative study, students who had completed at least one clinical internship (n.200) were asked to fill out a self-report questionnaire on the quality of learning using the CLEQUEI scale (1) and answer a few social and demographical questions. In addition to the questionnaire, 24 narrative interviews (semi-structured) were conducted; these interviews deepened the significance of the assigned internship experience. Results: Throughout all the clinical contexts that were analyzed, the dimension of the perce...

Background: The term Third Mission refers to the activities with which universities interact dire... more Background: The term Third Mission refers to the activities with which universities interact directly with the communities and the territory of reference, combining the objectives of the third mission with the two traditional missions: teaching and research. These were the premises that guided the Nursing Studies Course of the University of Parma, with the goal of implementing a structured path of “Intercultural Nursing” on a demo-ethno-anthropological basis. Methods: The path taken was divided into several phases: arrangement of moments of interaction with students; teaching activity aimed at students based on the relationship between ethno-anthropological knowledge, aspects of migration medicine and social legislation; direct meetings with representatives of some communities present in the Parma area. Results: The interaction with students was achieved through meetings called “Cultural Coffee”. The first meetings, in the measure of 4-5, took place in the period October-December 20...

Background and aim: Healthcare organizations, to reduce errors and extend the number of safe prac... more Background and aim: Healthcare organizations, to reduce errors and extend the number of safe practices, are looking for possible solutions to enhance the clients’ health quality care and trying to spread the culture of safety healthcare. Although in the literature the field of research “patient safety” is very debated, there are few empirical studies that investigate about the strategies undertaken by nursing students for the patients’ identification process during their care pathway. The aim of this study is to investigate the knowledge of the Ministerial Recommendation No. 3/2008 among nursing students, a specific Italian directive that aims to guarantee the safety of cares. Methods: A four-weeks single-centered observational study was conducted, involving a convenient sample of 112 students of the 2nd and 3rd year of the Nursing Course Degree of the University of Parma. The survey was conducted using an ad-hoc questionnaire. Results: The use of the identification wristband is con...

Background and aim: The nursing uniform represents a non-verbal mean of communication which in th... more Background and aim: The nursing uniform represents a non-verbal mean of communication which in the case of children can arouse positive or negative emotions. The first study conducted on a sample of 107 children, aimed to define their preferences on different models of decorated nursing uniforms; the second one conducted on 101 nurses to understand the preferences, the meanings attributed to the uniform and their availability to adapt it according to the preferences expressed by the children. Methods: We conducted an observational study with a qualitative approach. For the first objective with the children, a visual stimulus was used, showing 6 models of uniform: the traditional plus 5 models of different colors and themes (cartoons characters and videogames). For the second objective with the nurses, in addition to reproducing the same visual stimulus, a semi-structured questionnaire was used. Results: Children and nurses seem to be in perfect accord, because in both groups, color ...

BACKGROUND AND AIM The evaluation of nursing care is a topic of great interest and especially cru... more BACKGROUND AND AIM The evaluation of nursing care is a topic of great interest and especially crucial in intensive care contexts. However, inside the Italian scientific scenario it is still difficult to measure NSO, or Nursing Sensitive Outcomes, due to the lack of indicators or scales shared by the nursing community. The aim of the present study was therefore to develop a Quality Nursing Care Scale for the Intensive Care (ICU-I-QNCS). METHOD From the literature review of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) quality standards, they were generated 63 items. Then 43 experts assessed them through the Content Validity Index (CVI). Items with a CVI score <0.90 were removed from the scale. RESULTS All the 63 items have achieved an average score CVI equal or greater than 0.90. 5 item reached an optimal average CVI score (=1); 23 showed an average CVI score between 0.90-0.94 and last 35 were between 0.95-0.99. CONCLUSIONS The ICU-I-QNCS has obtained an acceptable CVI level and it reflects the u...

American heart journal, 2018

Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, Jan 30, 2017

The therapeutic education and self-management carried out by nurses, are winning elements in card... more The therapeutic education and self-management carried out by nurses, are winning elements in cardiovascular secondary prevention, but because they are complex matters, they require special training by the professionals. The target of the study has been to assess the effects in clinical practice of a training program for nurses in the management of patients with cardiovascular diseases, leaning towards a self-oriented patient management and therapeutic patient education. The research utilized a quali-quantitative study to compare the responses of 53 trained nurses (experimental group) and 101 untrained nurses (control group). The instrument used was a self-report structured in two sections: the first, a qualitative kind, was used to investigate the portrayal of nurses regarding self-management; the second, a quantitative kind, included a Likert scale based on 5 points (1=never, 5=always) that investigated the professional nurse's action in its bio-psycho-socio-relational and clin...

Epithelioid hepatic angiomyolipoma (Epi-HAML) is a rare benign mesenchymal tumor with malignant p... more Epithelioid hepatic angiomyolipoma (Epi-HAML) is a rare benign mesenchymal tumor with malignant potential. Most of Epi-HAML contains no or only a minimal amount of adipose tissue and poses a diagnostic challenge. Central vessels are characteristic imaging finding of Epi-HAML, which usually were displayed by dynamic contrast imaging. In this paper, we displayed the central vessels of Epi-HAML invisible on conventional MR images using a new developed abdominal susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first description for the role of SWI in characterization of Epi-HAML.

Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, 2016

Secondary prevention after an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) has proved to be effective in patient... more Secondary prevention after an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) has proved to be effective in patients with coronary heart disease, and is strongly recommended by the international guidelines. However, there is a lack of widespread secondary preventive programmes in real-world clinical practice, even though it has been shown that these can be successfully conducted by nurses. We have designed a multicentre randomised trial involving patients with ACS in which nurses will fully coordinate secondary prevention in the intervention arm using a multidimensional nursing form after attending ad hoc teaching sessions.

Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, Jan 9, 2015

The literature on patients with cardiovascular disease emphasizes the importance of providing a b... more The literature on patients with cardiovascular disease emphasizes the importance of providing a bio-medical and a psycho-social nursing care during the three phases of the nursing process (acceptance, assistance, education). How is his multidimensional nursing approach actually used during nursing practice? The present study aimed to evaluate the effects of a nursing educational training and it was finalized to implement a multidimensional care practice of nurses working in Intensive Coronary Care Unit (I.C.C.U.). The entire nursing staff of the I.C.C.U of Parma Hospital (N = 17) took part in the research and it has been randomized in two subgroups. A group of 9 nurses participated as experimental group. They filled up a semi-structured questionnaire investigating the bio-clinical and psycho-social nursing activities, before (pre-test, time 1) and after (post-test, time 2) a professional training. 8 nurses participated as control group. They filled out the same questionnaire (at the...

Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis, Jun 24, 2014

The literature on cardiovascular disease has highlighted that therapeutic adherence is often inad... more The literature on cardiovascular disease has highlighted that therapeutic adherence is often inadequate. What are the reasons for this poor adherence to medication? The goal has been to measure the different factors related to therapeutic adherence, differentiating the SCA patients on three levels of self-referred therapeutic adherence and delving the relations between self-reported therapeutic adherence and socio-demographic, clinical, emotive, cognitive and socio-relational variables. A total of 84 Italian patients (66.7% males) with (SCA) took part in the study and completed a semi-structured questionnaire investigating the variables described above. RESULTS indicate the influence of clinical variables, showing that patients suffer more of dyspnea and angina symptoms than those that state to follow prescriptions. But the emotive aspects seem able to interfere more with the adherence: the subjects scarcely adherent have felt more threatened by their illness, and experimented more...

PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE, 2014

ABSTRACT Assumendo la prospettiva della teoria degli stati d’identità di Marcia, l’obiettivo del ... more ABSTRACT Assumendo la prospettiva della teoria degli stati d’identità di Marcia, l’obiettivo del presente studio è di analizzare i processi di ridefinizione dell’identità professionale di un gruppo di infermieri della Regione Emilia Romagna esaminandone la connessione da un lato con alcune variabili organizzative (percezione del cambiamento normativo), dall’altro con la motivazione e con la soddisfazione lavorativa. Attraverso uno studio correlazionale su un campione di 838 infermieri reclutati da 5 ospedali della Regione Emilia Romagna e realizzato mediante un questionario, sono stati misurati: 1) gli stati d’identità professionale, 2) le motivazioni alla professione, 3) il grado di soddisfazione lavorativa, 4) la percezione dell’importanza del cambiamento normativo. I risultati mostrano che sono gli infermieri in stato di identità acquisita a mostrare maggior soddisfazione lavorativa, maggiore motivazione e a considerare più importanti i cambiamenti normativi. Dai risultati si evince che le organizzazioni sanitarie dovrebbero promuovere azioni formative orientate non solo alle conoscenze (knowing) e al "saper fare" (doing), ma anche al miglioramento della pratica professionale intesa come "saper essere" (being). Keywords: Identità professionale, infermieri, soddisfazione lavorativa, motivazione.