Biomedical subjects

D Gignac

Publications and source records attributed to D Gignac.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1991

Willingness of nursing students and faculty to care for patients with AIDS.

Previous research has indicated that nursing students, along with other health care professionals, have expressed an unwillingness to care for patients with AIDS. The purposes of this study were to examine the relationships among nursing students' and faculty members' knowledge of AIDS, attitudes toward patients with AIDS, and willingness to care for them. A descriptive-correlational design was used in which nursing students and faculty (n = 166) at an urban, middle-sized Canadian university completed the AIDS Assess Test developed by Lawrence and Lawrence. Significant relationships were found between willingness to care for and have contact with persons with AIDS and knowledge scores for the group as a whole. Nursing students with more knowledge about AIDS expressed greater willingness to care for AIDS patients. Subjects in the senior year of the nursing program had significantly higher scores on willingness to care for or have contact with persons with AIDS than subjects in other levels of the program and faculty (F(4, 143) = 2.94, p = 0.02). Subjects who knew a homosexual person had significantly higher scores on willingness to care for and have contact with persons with AIDS.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

PubMed1991

Knowledge and attitudes about AIDS among Canadian nursing students: educational implications.

Research was conducted to examine the level of knowledge and attitudes about acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) among Canadian nursing students and faculty and the relationships among knowledge, attitudes, and willingness to care for AIDS patients. The study was an extension of earlier research by Lawrence and Lawrence (1989). A descriptive-correlational design was used in which four levels of nursing students and faculty (N = 166) completed the AIDS Assess Test. Knowledge scores increased as students progressed through the program; faculty had the highest scores. Attitude scores were relatively low, indicating areas in which further education and values clarification are essential. Pearson's r revealed significant positive relationships between subjects' knowledge of AIDS and attitude scores for the sample as a whole and two levels of students in the nursing program. Other variables relating to subjects' attitudes toward AIDS patients and willingness to care for and have contact with them were identified in the research. Findings suggest additional learning experiences for assisting students in developing the knowledge needed for care of the patient with AIDS and clarifying values and beliefs which might influence that care.

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome↗

PubMed1991

Vestibular neurotomy by retrosigmoid approach: technique, indications, and results.

During the past 15 years, 96 retrosigmoid vestibular neurotomies have been used in the surgical management of incapacitating Meniere's disease for the control of vertigo and preservation of hearing. This posterior approach of the pontocerebellar angle gives the best view on the acousticofacial nerve bundle, through a 2 x 2 cm suboccipital craniotomy immediately behind the mastoid and sigmoid sinus. Then the vestibular nerve is easily identified, separated from the cochlear nerve and sectioned, the facial nerve not being at risk, as it lies much deeper. Actually, the majority of authors agree that vestibular neurotomy is the most effective surgical treatment in relieving disabling vertigo (96% of cases) with serviceable hearing, but few surgeons know that the retrosigmoid approach is simpler and more reliable than the middle fossa or retrolabyrinthine approaches, with a low incidence of complications. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the routine use of the retrosigmoid approach.

Aged↗

PubMed1990

[Otospongiosis: different surgical technics, identical results. Why?].

Both platinectomy and platinotomy are currently used to treat otosclerosis surgically. Though the techniques are different from one another, especially by the new area ratio between tympanic membrane and stapes foot-plate, the results are similar. It should be clear that the simple "piston model" of the tympanic ossicular system cannot explain this results. If, for the seesaw mechanical view, a vibratory molecular system conducting acoustic energy is substituted, a pertinent explanation can be given for this result. Thus, understanding of the pattern motion of the tympanic ossicular system has to change drastically.

Ear, Middle↗

PubMed1990

[Retraction pockets, pathological entity?].

Retraction pockets are not a pathological entity per se but take after various ear diseases, with which they share the same morphological eardrum alterations. The authors believe that any holistic evaluation of retraction pockets, as though these were forming a single group of like pathogenic origin, i.e., tubal dysfunction, would be artificial and raise therapeutic problems. The statistical analysis of the causes for retraction pocket formation provides little information. Otologists are still looking into chronic otitis media and cholesteatoma as a possible, long-suspected, unproved etiology. Electron microscopy and, more particularly, istological-enzymological analyses of mounts prepared by the authors have shown, in some cases, the anomalous presence, in the pocket, of Langerhans' cells, which the authors consider as strongly indicative of cholesteatoma. While confirming the clinical diagnosis, anatomopathological examination allows to differentiate poor-prognosis retraction pockets from benign ones. The pathogenesis of these pockets is still poorly understood. It is the authors' contention that tympanic invagination is more likely traceable to some biopathological/biochemical phenomenon than to occupational mechanical disorders involving the tube. The clinical characteristics of retraction pockets are the basis for their classification into three groups, according to their evolutional tendency. Thus, developing cholesteatomas bear a poor prognosis; sequelae of benign otitis are associated with small risk; lastly, there is a small group of pockets the evolution of which is hard to specify. The authors believe that such differentiation between retraction pockets is mandatory to have a clear picture of therapeutic indications, and to assess the various outcomes.

Cholesteatoma↗