Caridad Dandicourt Thomas’s research while affiliated with Universidad de Ciencias Médicas de la Habana and other places

Introduction: the nature of nursing since its inception derives from the need of taking care of the people's health. This statement has supported the contributions of this staff in order to improve the population's health. Previous studies demonstrated that there was no agreement between the functions approved in the Resolution 396/07 of the Ministry of Public Health and the preparation of the community nursing staffs during their formation process. As a result, a new proposal of functions, which was considered better from the quantitative and qualitative viewpoint, was submitted. Objectives: to check in practice the functions that are really fulfilled by these professionals in their performance. Method: an observational and descriptive study was carried out in family physician and nurse's offices in La Habana province during the year 2011. An expert-validated observational guide was used. The observers and the sample to be observed were then selected and the direct observation in practice was made. Results: it was confirmed that most of the submitted functions were fulfilled; out of the 54 proposed functions, 52 were performed: 40 assistance-type, 6 educational, 2 administrative and 4 research. Conclusions: the majority of expert-validated functions were confirmed in practice, being the assistance-type predominant. This underlines the need of making the new proposed functions official.

Introduction: In "Dr. Diego Tamayo" Polyclinic of Old Havana Municipality, in Havana, it was detected a high incidence of pregnancy in adolescence, fact that worried given the impact that this has on the development of adolescents. Objective: To identify the knowledge of adolescents on the prevention of pregnancy at this stage of life. Methods: A descriptive study, observational type, cross-section was made, in the period July/2010 October/2011. We worked with a group of 125 adolescents who attended the consultation of menstrual regulation, which met the inclusion criteria. A questionnaire was applied, where the information obtained allowed to know the knowledge of adolescents with respect to the subject under study, the collected data were reflected in appropriate tables adapted to each analyzed variable. Results: The highest percent of the surveyed teenagers began their sexual relations between 14 and 16 years old. The way to access the most are the relatives, followed by the TV and friends. As far as the social connotations attributed by the teenagers to the pregnancy it was found that they identified complications in pregnancy or childbirth as one of the problems that come with pregnancy at an early age.

A developmental study was conducted in Havana City province in order to propose the specific functions of the technical and university nursing personnel working at the primary health care level. A 4-session workshop was carried out with a group of collaborators composed of 10 nursing baccalaureates. A survey was applied to 100 nurses/male nurses as an opinion pilot study. Of them, 44 had a Nursing degree and 56 were technicians, 66 were physicians and 3 psychologists that worked in these services. Besides, experts were consulted through the Delphi method to get their opinion and the validation of the proposal. The integral analysis of the variables of the study was made starting from the created databases. The processing included descriptive statistical method (percentages) and qualitative analysis of the results, which allowed to reach conclusions regarding the functions of the Nursing technicians and baccalaureates at the primary health care level. The proposal of functions was obtained as a final product. It is quantitative and qualitatively better than the ones existing in the country so far.