Anxiety in acute myocardial infarction
Gróf, K.

Objective: study anxiety in patients after AMI, in comparison with diabetic and healthy individuals.
Methods: 60 patients treated with AMI at a county hospital, with 50 diabetic patients with no history of heart problems and 50 healthy individuals as controls. Anxiety was measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory's Hungarian version; an additional questionnaire was administered to measure factors generating and increasing anxiety during nursing care.
Results: trait anxiety index values consistently exceeded those of state anxiety, which was found to decrease with increased duration of hospitalisation. The greatest shortcomings were identified in meeting patients' needs for safety and communication; the role of rest in determining anxiety was found to be less important.
Conclusions: Trait anxiety is a characteristic personality feature. State anxiety is determined by the transfer into the hospital setting, regardless of the type of disease. Patients' state anxiety seems to be influenced by quality of nursing to a greater extent than do therapeutic interventions. Nurses should devote special attention to managing both trait anxiety and state anxiety generated by hospitalisation.

Infection control nurses in Hungarian hospitals
Szloboda, I.

Purpose: to determine the place, role and employment of infection control nurses (ICN) in Hungarian hospitals 5 years after ICN-training was first launched in this country.
Methods: self-administered questionnaire survey of 110 ICN trained until December 2000.
Results: 84,5% of skilled ICNs returned the questionnaire; 68.8% are employed in jobs suiting their qualification. 73% of the respondents reported to the hospital hygienist. The majority of the ICNs acquired experience in nosocomial surveillance methodology as part of inhosptial programs. However, due to a lack of unified protocols or guidelines, such programs were delivered in different ways, making a comparison very difficult. ICNs carried out traditional hospital hygiene work in addition to surveillance. About 80% of the hospital provided ICNs with the infrastructure (office, computer etc.) required to do surveillance. ICNs identified the need for continuing education with practical elements, nationally unified professional programs and a change in attitude within the healthcare facility.
Conclusions: National and unified professional guidelines and protocols should be developed on which to base survillance programs. This would generate baseline data that are indispensable also for benchmarking within and among the institutions.

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