Evaluation of NICU Nurses' Competence in Pain Assessment 5 Years After Implementation of the COMFORTneo Scale.

Background: Adequate pain management of preterm and sick newborn infants is a critical issue in the neonatal intensive care unit, as the infants are small and vulnerable with limited resources to deal with pain and stressful experiences. The use of pain assessment instruments, however, must be applied correctly to achieve consistency and improve continuity in care and treatment among clinicians.

Purpose: To assess the development of neonatal intensive care unit nurses' interrater agreement in using the COMFORTneo pain assessment tool 5 years after initial implementation, and to identify items needing further development through analysis of discrepancies among nurses' COMFORTneo scores.

Psychosocial work environment and risk of ischaemic heart disease in women: the Danish Nurse Cohort Study.

Objectives: To investigate the effect of work pressure and job influence on the development of ischaemic heart disease (IHD) in women.

Methods: The effect of work pressure and job influence on the 15-year incidence of IHD in women participating in the Danish Nurse Cohort Study was prospectively studied. A total of 12 116 participants, aged 45-64 years, were examined in 1993 using a questionnaire and were followed by individual linkage in the National Register of Hospital Discharges to the beginning of 2008.

Estimating the effect of current, previous and never use of drugs in studies based on prescription registries.

Purpose: Many studies which investigate the effect of drugs categorize the exposure variable into never, current, and previous use of the study drug. When prescription registries are used to make this categorization, the exposure variable possibly gets misclassified since the registries do not carry any information on the time of discontinuation of treatment.In this study, we investigated the amount of misclassification of exposure (never, current, previous use) to hormone therapy (HT) when the exposure variable was based on prescription data.

Assessment of the nutritional status among residents in a Danish nursing home - health effects of a formulated food and meal policy.

Aims And Objectives: To gain information about the effects of implementation of a written food and meal policy and to evaluate to what extent systematic nutritional assessment and intervention would result in weight stability among the residents.

Background: Studies have shown that aged residents living in institutions suffer from malnutrition or are at risk of malnutrition. Health policies have pointed out that more attention should be given to individualised nutritional care.

The relationship between lifestyle, working environment, socio-demographic factors and expulsion from the labour market due to disability pension among nurses.

Background: Denmark is facing a shortage of nurses and this trend is anticipated to worsen within the next decades. The major reason for this shortage is that only very few nurses remain employed until the general retirement age. Every year several nurses are expelled from the labour market prematurely which causes a problem not only for the disabled nurses but also because it can affect the morale and productivity among the remaining personnel while new staff members are hired and trained.

Are work-related stressors associated with diagnosis of more advanced stages of incident breast cancers?

Objective: To assess the relation between work-related stressors and breast cancer incidence and prognostic characteristics (estrogen receptor status, grade, lymph node status, size, stage) at the time of diagnosis.

Methods: The 18,932 women included in the Danish Nurse Cohort reported work-related stressors in 1993 and again in 1999 and were followed until the end of 2003 in national registries. Prognostic characteristics were obtained from a clinical database and fewer than 0.

Collection of blood, saliva, and buccal cell samples in a pilot study on the Danish nurse cohort: comparison of the response rate and quality of genomic DNA.

In this study, we compared the response rates of blood, saliva, and buccal cell samples in a pilot study on the Danish nurse cohort and examined the quantity and quality of the purified genomic DNA. Our data show that only 31% of the requested participants delivered a blood sample, whereas 72%, 80%, and 76% delivered a saliva sample, buccal cell sample via mouth swabs, or buccal cell sample on FTA card, respectively. Analysis of purified genomic DNA by NanoDrop and agarose gel electrophoresis revealed that blood and saliva samples resulted in DNA with the best quality, whereas the DNA quality from buccal cells was low.

Risk factors for hip fracture and a possible effect modification by hormone replacement therapy. The Danish nurse cohort study.

Objective: To identify risk factors for hip fracture and to examine whether hormone replacement therapy (HRT) modifies the effect of these risk factors.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: The Danish Nurse Cohort Study.

Risk of low-energy hip, wrist, and upper arm fractures among current and previous users of hormone replacement therapy: The Danish Nurse Cohort Study.

Objective: To examine the effect of oestrogen alone and in combination with progestin on the risk of low-energy, hip, wrist, and upper arm fractures. Additionally, to examine to what extent previous use, duration of use as well as recency of discontinuation of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) influences the fracture risk.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

The validity of self-reported fractures among Danish female nurses: comparison with fractures registered in the Danish National Hospital Register.

Background: The authors compared self-reported non-spine fractures obtained from a cohort of Danish female nurses with fracture diagnoses registered in the Danish National Hospital Register (DNHR).

Method: The self-reported fracture history was obtained from a questionnaire and was related to fracture information registered with the DNHR by means of the unique person identification code of Danish citizens. A total of 166 self-reported hip fractures, 391 self-reported wrist fractures, and 121 self-reported upper arm fractures were available for the comparison.

The validity of self-reported use of hormone replacement therapy among Danish nurses.

Background: Recent findings from randomized clinical trials on the effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) among postmenopausal women contradict findings from observational studies indicating a protective effect on the development of cardiovascular disease. Most observational studies on HRT are based on self-reported data, although data on the validity of HRT in postmenopausal women are sparse.

Methods: We examined self-reported HRT use from questionnaires administered in 1993 (n = 2694) and again in 1999 (n = 2666) to a cohort of Danish nurses living in two Danish counties compared with prescription-reimbursement data from two administrative databases through the Danish National Health Service.

Increased risk of breast cancer following different regimens of hormone replacement therapy frequently used in Europe.

Epidemiologic studies have shown an increased risk of breast cancer following hormone replacement therapy (HRT). The aim of this study was to investigate whether different treatment regimens or the androgenecity of progestins influence the risk of breast cancer differently. The Danish Nurse Cohort was established in 1993, where all female nurses aged 45 years and above received a mailed questionnaire (n = 23,178).

Increased risk of stroke in hypertensive women using hormone therapy: analyses based on the Danish Nurse Study.

Background: Recent randomized clinical trials suggest an increased risk of stroke with hormone therapy (HT), whereas observational studies have suggested mixed results. Differences in design, definitions of HT exposure, and stroke outcome may explain these discrepancies. Little attention has been paid to identifying subgroups of women who are particularly sensitive to HT.

Use of hormone replacement therapy among Danish nurses at increased risk of osteoporosis.

Observational studies and recent randomized trials have shown that postmenopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may reduce the risk of osteoporotic fractures by about 30 to 40%. In this study we used a log linear graphical model to determine whether women with a known increased risk of osteoporosis were more likely to use HRT than other women and to examine whether women at increased risk modified this risk through their lifestyle. Cox regression analysis was used to analyze if women at risk of osteoporosis used HRT longer than women not at risk.