Nursing Practice Today

Primary nursing for continuity of care in a patient with a rare suprasellar cavernous hemangioma: A case report

Ahmadreza Rafiei, Reza Majidazar, Ali Sadeghi, Mahdi Nabi Foodani — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 13:04:06 +0330

Background & Aim: Suprasellar cavernous hemangioma is an exceptionally rare intracranial vascular malformation that can mimic more common sellar and suprasellar lesions. In patients with complex neurological conditions, continuity of nursing care may also be important for coordinating multidisciplinary management and supporting patient safety. This case report aims to describe the clinical presentation, diagnostic challenges, Nursing care, and surgical management of suprasellar cavernous hemangioma.
Case Report: A 72-year-old woman presented with progressive right-eye visual impairment, followed by intermittent headaches, imbalance, gait instability, and recurrent falls. Brain MRI revealed a heterogeneous suprasellar lesion compressing the optic chiasm and right cavernous sinus, while digital subtraction angiography showed no vascular abnormalities. A thrombosed aneurysm and other suprasellar masses were considered in the differential diagnosis. Surgical resection was performed, and histopathological examination confirmed a cavernous hemangioma. During hospitalization, Primary Nursing was implemented to coordinate individualized neurological and functional assessments, fall prevention, perioperative care, postoperative monitoring, patient and family education, multidisciplinary communication, and discharge planning.
Conclusion: This case highlights the diagnostic challenges of suprasellar cavernous hemangioma, particularly when progressive visual impairment is the initial and predominant manifestation. Persistent visual symptoms accompanied by headache, balance disturbances, or gait instability should prompt consideration of an intracranial cause and appropriate neuroimaging. The case also illustrates how Primary Nursing can provide a structured framework for continuity, individualized assessment, multidisciplinary communication, patient education, and safe transitions of care in patients undergoing complex neurosurgical treatment.

Lived experiences of spiritual conflict among LGBT individuals living with HIV in Lampung, Bengkulu, and Depok, Indonesia: A phenomenological study

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 14:18:11 +0330

Background & Aim: Spiritual conflict among LGBT individuals living with HIV may arise from intersecting sexual or gender identity, religious beliefs, and illness-related meanings. This study explored lived experiences of spiritual conflict in Lampung, Bengkulu, and Depok, Indonesia.
Methods & Materials: This descriptive phenomenological study used Colaizzi’s seven-step method. Twenty purposively recruited participants (14 gay men, three bisexual men, and three transgender women) completed in-depth interviews from July to August 2026. Interviews addressed faith, identity, HIV diagnosis, spiritual struggle, coping, and reconciliation. Analysis identified significant statements, formulated meanings, clustered themes, and developed an essential structure. Trustworthiness was supported by member checking, reflexive journaling, peer debriefing, expert review, and an audit trail.
Results: Five themes and 17 subthemes emerged: (1) recognizing the contradiction between faith and desire; (2) living with guilt and spiritual distress; (3) interpreting HIV as a spiritual turning point; (4) negotiating identity and faith; and (5) seeking reconciliation with God. Participants described tension between religious teachings and identity, guilt, self-blame, fear of divine punishment, spiritual distance, meaning reconstruction, and reconciliation. Spiritual conflict was overlapping and recursive rather than uniform or sequential. Participants moved between guilt and hope, spiritual distance and religious engagement, and self-rejection and acceptance. HIV diagnosis often prompted reflection, although its spiritual meaning varied.
Conclusion: Spiritual conflict involved ongoing identity negotiation, moral interpretation, meaning reconstruction, and reconciliation. Spirituality could be both a source of distress and a resource for adaptation.

Frailty assessment instruments used among Iranian older adults: A scoping review

Maryam Imani, Monir Nobahar — Sat, 10 Oct 2026 15:19:12 +0330

Background & Aim: Frailty is a common but heterogeneous geriatric syndrome, and numerous instruments have been developed for its assessment. Although several have been applied to older adults in Iran, their use has not been comprehensively mapped. This scoping review aimed to map frailty assessment instruments used among Iranian older adults and describe their characteristics and patterns of use.
Methods & Materials: Following the methodological framework of Arksey and O'Malley and reported in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines, we searched Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, SID, and Magiran, supplemented by Google Scholar and reference-list screening. Primary studies involving adults aged ≥60 years in Iran that used a specific instrument or approach to assess frailty were eligible for inclusion. Studies published in Persian or English with accessible full text were considered, regardless of publication date.
Results: Of 719 records identified, 77 studies met the eligibility criteria, identifying 13 instruments. The Fried Frailty Phenotype was most frequently used (31 studies; 40.3%), followed by the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (17; 22.1%) and Frailty Index (8; 10.4%); most instrument applications were community-based (54; 67.5%). Only nine instruments had independent psychometric evaluation in Iran (13 studies), while the FRAIL Scale, Clinical Frailty Scale, PRISMA-7, and Frailty Index for Elders had none. The Comprehensive Frailty Assessment Instrument-Plus covered the broadest range of frailty domains among the identified instruments but was infrequently used in Iranian studies.
Conclusion: Frailty assessment in Iran relies mainly on the physical phenotype tool in community-dwelling older adults, with limited multidimensional coverage. No instrument was developed for this population, and several widely used tools lack local validation. Tool choice should match the assessment's purpose, and future studies should cover under-researched settings such as hospitals and nursing homes.

Problem recognition in youth mental health help-seeking: A Walker and Avant concept analysis

Faida Annisa, Penpaktr Uthis — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:17:48 +0330

Background & Aim: Help-seeking is central to youth mental health research and nursing practice, yet existing models and instruments often assume that youth recognize distress as a problem requiring support. This concept analysis aimed to clarify youth mental health help-seeking, focusing on problem recognition as an early and rarely assessed component.
Methods & Materials: Walker and Avant's eight-step method was used. Searches of PubMed, EBSCO, and Google Scholar focused on literature published during 2011-2026, with earlier seminal works retained. Thirty-two core sources were analyzed to examine conceptual uses, defining attributes, cases, antecedents, consequences, and empirical referents.
Results: Help-seeking was conceptualized as a progressive process involving three defining attributes: recognition of a problem, intentional decision-making, and engagement with appropriate support sources. Antecedents included psychological distress or functional difficulty, mental health literacy, beliefs and stigma, trusted relationships, service accessibility, and support pathways. Consequences included improved mental health, enhanced coping, increased self-efficacy, normalization of help-seeking, and strengthened social connection. Empirical referents were identified for each attribute, although existing measures commonly assess attitudes, intentions, or behaviors and rarely assess problem recognition directly.
Conclusion: Clarifying problem recognition as a defining attribute strengthens the conceptual foundation of youth mental health help-seeking and informs nurses' early assessment, therapeutic communication, mental health education, and timely referral across school, university, community, and clinical settings.

Knowledge and attitudes toward palliative care and their association among nurses and physicians at a secondary referral hospital in Oman: A cross-sectional study

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 17:06:36 +0330

Background & Aim: Providing comprehensive, holistic care is a fundamental goal of healthcare systems, and palliative care constitutes an essential component of such care. Nurses' and physicians' attitudes may influence the integration of palliative care into routine clinical practice. This study aimed to characterize nurses' and physicians' knowledge of and attitudes toward palliative care, assess the relationship between these variables, and identify factors independently associated with attitudes in a secondary referral hospital in Oman.
Methods & Materials: A cross-sectional descriptive correlational study was conducted among 280 nurses and physicians recruited through convenience sampling from clinical departments at Nizwa Hospital, Oman. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire and the Health Care Providers' Knowledge and Attitude of Palliative Care Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, nonparametric tests, Spearman's rank-order correlation, and hierarchical multiple linear regression were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 26.0.
Results: The mean attitude and knowledge scores were 140.20 ± 13.47 and 18.60 ± 4.11, respectively. Knowledge and attitude scores showed a statistically significant, positive, moderate correlation (rₛ = 0.348, p < 0.001). In the final hierarchical regression model, higher knowledge scores were independently associated with higher attitude scores (β = 0.353, p < 0.001), and the model accounted for 21.0% of the variance in attitude scores.
Conclusion: Knowledge was positively and moderately associated with attitudes toward palliative care, and this association persisted after adjustment for the examined variables. These findings may inform educational planning at the study hospital; however, given the cross-sectional design, they do not establish that higher knowledge leads to more favorable attitudes or improved quality of care. The effectiveness of educational programs should be evaluated in intervention studies.