Publications by authors named "Valerie Chaplain"

Malignant cutaneous wounds pose unique challenges in patient care, requiring specialized attention to alleviate local symptoms and enhance health-related quality of life. As the prevalence of these wounds continues to rise with improving cancer survival rates, it is essential to establish comprehensive best practice recommendations for their topical management. To address this need, a task force was assembled from across Canada, consisting of members from Nurses Specialized in Wound, Ostomy, and Continence Canada and the Canadian Palliative Care Nursing Association.

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Aim: To explore the impact that prolonged use of personal protective equipment (PPE) has on the skin integrity of Canadian health professionals.

Method: A descriptive, pan-Canadian, cross-sectional, online survey was carried out to explore the type and prevalence of PPE-related skin injury among Canadian health professionals. Convenience sampling was used to disseminate the online survey link to health professionals.

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Article Synopsis
  • An annual average of 13,000 Canadians undergo ostomy procedures, necessitating careful stoma site marking to prevent complications, which led to an evidence-based position statement from two professional bodies.
  • A collaborative task force of 20 health care professionals conducted a literature review between 2009 and 2019, resulting in the selection of 18 key papers that informed the development of a detailed stoma marking protocol.
  • The final output includes a 17-step guide for stoma site marking, emphasizing informed consent and proper assessment, along with teaching aids such as a one-page document and an instructional video.
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Debridement is described in the literature as having a high level of clinical risk and may result in patient harm when performed by untrained nurses. As a result, specialized knowledge, skills, and competencies are required to initiate, direct, and perform safe and effective debridement. This executive summary provides an overview of Debridement: Canadian Best Practice Recommendations for Nurses from the Nurses Specialized in Wound, Ostomy and Continence Canada (NSWOCC).

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Objective: To adapt the International Skin Tear Advisory Panel (ISTAP) skin tear classification system into French Canadian, and to test the content validity and inter-rater reliability of the translated version.

Method: Phase one included the translation of the ISTAP skin tear classification system into French Canadian, using a forward-back translation method. Following this the translated version was tested for content validity and inter-rater reliability with registered nurses from a French acute care hospital in Ottawa, Canada.

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