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Diagnostic coronarography and coronary interventions have become widely accepted procedures in patients with ischemic heart disease, in the acute, chronic, as well as diagnostic stages. The interventions on coronary arteries are closely connected with diagnostic catheterization and deal with stenoses of coronary arteries. The diagnostic and interventional catheters used for the procedure are inserted through the femoral or radial artery. Decannulation of the sheath following the femoral and radial access is an important part of the procedure. This review article analyses the available literary sources, with the aim of determining the possibilities of standardization of the specialized nursing care provided for patients requiring decannulation of the sheath from the arteria radialis, or femoralis, following left-side coronary catheterization. The presented paper has been drawn up on the basis of a review of expert articles presented in freely accessible databases in the period between 2000 and 2012. The nursing standards for decannulation of the sheath obtained from the links to foreign literature often arise from the conclusions of nursing research (EBP). Standards concentrate on the means and length of compression of the arteria femoralis and arteria radialis; furthermore, they specify the compression device for the respective blood drainage area and maintaining the safety and comfort of the patient. Correctly set standards eliminate the rate of complications (haematoma, bleeding), in relation for example to the type of compression applied on the artery, or to nursing staff trained in compression techniques. The nursing standard is an important part of the procedure, contributing to a reduction in complications and an improvement in the patient's comfort, and has an important platform, especially abroad. Significant elements for the creation of standards and defining the correct criteria according to the EBP standard were analysed from the available sources.

In the present study, we examined physical activity, perceived health and related motivational constructs in Czech older adults. It is a correlational questionnaire study conducted in a sample of 315 Czech seniors, mostly participants of various educational and social programs for older adults. We administered a battery of questionnaires to measure self-rated physical activity (PASE, LTEQ), perceived health (SF-12) and motivation to physical activity (scales of perceived self-efficacy, social support and self-regulation strategies).
We found a significant relationship between physical activity and perceived physical and mental health. Considering the motivational constructs, we found a significant relationship between physical activity and perceived self-efficacy and social support. On the other hand, we found weaker relationship between physical activity and explicit motivational strategies, such as planning, goal-setting and self-regulation. The results may indicate that physical activity of our respondents is predominantly habitual. They probably do not focus on exercise itself but the physical activity may be a byproduct of other activities. This is supported also by the fact that the indicated physical activity of respondents stemmed mostly from everyday activities, such as walking, gardening or working around the house.

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the participation and the degree of success of the visually impaired in the labor market with regard to the market economy in the Czech Republic.
The method used consisted of the application and comparison of statistical information on persons with disabilities, collected by order of the Czech government, the Czech Statistical Office in cooperation with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports.
The economic activity of the visually impaired was not a direct focus of the statistical survey. The data was collected for the disabled as a whole. However, at the personal request of the author, the Czech Statistical Office has recalculated the data and provided us with it.
This paper briefly describes the situation regarding the workplace activities of the visually impaired before 1989 in the former Czechoslovakia. It recognizes the impact of unemployment and the importance of work for people with disabilities, as well as briefly glossing over the most common hurdles preventing them from finding employment.
In other parts, statistical data is compared from a nationwide survey which presented the fact that the Czech Republic has an estimated 1,015,548 persons with disabilities.
As seen in the results, the number of people with some form of visual disability is approaching ninety thousand. In the group researched, there were 6331 persons economically active who were visually impaired; from that number, women accounted for less than one-third. Similarly, in the whole group of people with disabilities and even the visually handicapped, information shows that in the group of economically active persons, the majority hold proper employment. Roughly 15% of those economically active are self-employed.

Malnutrition among children under five years of age is a chronic problem in most regions of Ethiopia, including the study region (Tigray). This study estimated the prevalence and identified the key risk factors of malnutrition in children under five years of age in Shire Indaselassie Town, North Ethiopia. Data were collected from 316 children aged under five and their mothers using quantitative survey and standard WHO protocols, and subsequent analysis was made using Emergency Nutrition Assessment (ENA) and SPSS software packages. The study estimated the prevalence of malnutrition and investigated the effects of demographic, socioeconomic, child health and sanitary conditions, feeding and dietary variables on malnutrition: stunting (low height for age), underweight (low weight for age) and wasting (low weight-for-height) among under-five children. Logistic regression was used to identify the determinants of malnutrition in the study area. The result showed that 56.6% of the children under age five have chronic malnutrition, are underweight (20.9%) and wasting (4.1%) with a mean z-score of -2.2, -1.0 and 0.3, respectively (i.e. average deviation, from the healthy and well nourished standard reference children of the same age). Children's age, maternal education, maternal employment, child weight at birth, mothers' body mass index and early initiation of breast feeding were the major factors associated with stunting among children. The main contributing factors of underweight among the children were found to be household size, marital status of mothers, decision on income allocation, contracting diarrhea two weeks preceding the survey, early initiation of breast feeding and bottle feeding. The study concluded that chronic malnutrition in the study area is still a major concern that needs timely intervention by governmental and non-governmental organizations.

The aim of this study is to explore the television watching habits on weekdays and on weekends of school-aged youth in Central Slovakia. The data were collected in 25 elementary schools and two eight-year high schools in the Žilina and Banská Bystrica regions from May to June 2010. The group of respondents consisted of 1187 pupils in three age categories: 11-year-olds (313 respondents), 13-year-olds (442 respondents) and 15-year-olds (432 respondents). The standardized questionnaire created for the requirements of the Health Behaviour in School Aged Children (HBSC) study was used for the collection of the data, which also contained demographic data such as gender, grade, and age. The significant interaction of two variables was evaluated using the chi-quadrat test. One third or fewer respondents in the monitored group spent 2 h of their free time on weekdays and on weekends watching television. Most frequently, 11-year-old and 13-year-old boys (26%) spent their free time on weekdays viewing television for 2 h. The differences between the age groups were statistically significant (p = 0.012). On weekend days 25% of 13-year-old boys spent their leisure time viewing television for 3 h. The differences between the age groups were statistically significant (p = 0.018). An increased number of hours spent watching television has a negative impact on the health of children and young people, contributes to physical inactivity and decreased school performance, and leads to a sedentary lifestyle. An appropriate use of free time plays an important role in the daily regime of schoolchildren.

Objectives: The main objective of this study is to examine the breast feeding and complementary feeding practices among farming communities of Southern Ethiopia.
Methods: It is a cross sectional survey design employing both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The study used primary data collected from 1094 households located in ten kebeles (the smallest administrative segment) through the multistage probability sampling technique. Information on demography of breast feeding was measured by universally accepted computational tools given by WHO. Data were analyzed using univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques.
Result: The result demonstrated that a large proportion of respondents were breast feeding their last child (age

The goal of this article is to present the occurrences of dieting and self-evaluation of one's personal body figure through the eyes of school-aged youth in central Slovakia. The data was collected in 25 elementary schools and two 8-year high schools in the Žilina and Banská Bystrica regions from May to June 2010. The group of respondents consisted of 1187 pupils in three age categories: 11-year-olds (313 respondents), 13-year-olds (442 respondents) and 15-year-olds (432 respondents). The standardized questionnaire created for the needs of this HBSC study was used for data collection. The data collection also contained demographic data including: gender, grade, age. The significant interaction of two variables was evaluated using the chi-quadrat test. The statistical analysis was made using STATISTICA software. Approximately half of the respondents (53%) stated that they were not dieting because their weight was "all right" according to the respondent. More than half of the respondents (56.6%) thought that their figure was "just right". Boys more frequently perceived that their personal figure was "just right". There were statistically significant differences discovered between gender and dieting (p = 0.000) and also between gender and self-evaluation of one's personal figure (p = 0.000). Statistically significant differences between age and dieting (p = 0,043) were also expected. But on the contrary, no statistically significant differences in self-evaluation of personal figure and age (p = 0.198) were found. Dieting in school-aged youth can result in changes in their cognitive, emotional and social developments. Therefore, it is necessary to consider physical and psychological consequences, including eating disorders, and to also support a healthy lifestyle which includes proper eating habits, regular physical activity and an efficient use of free time.

The work was aimed at experimental checking of selected sets of classification systems of nursing by NANDA (The North American Nursing Diagnosis Association), NIC (Nursing Interventions Classification), NOC (Nursing Outcomes Classification), in patients with diagnosis of delirium, in which transient delirium occurred in the course of their hospitalization in the Faculty Hospital in Nitra, at the First Medical Clinic, Second Medical Clinic, Neurological Clinic and After-Treatment Department and in the Hospital with Polyclinic in Trenčín and Geriatric Department. Total of n = 250 patients were divided into experimental and control groups. Twenty-five nurses participated in the research that took care of patients in the experimental group at the working sites specified above. The purpose of the work was to check the effect of the use of and connections between the selected NNN sets under conditions of Slovak nursing services. The results obtained in the experimental group were compared with those in the control group that experienced routine nursing practice. For the completeness of the problems investigated, the interest was aimed at opinions of nurses, who implemented the experiment. The work constituted partial research project CGA II/6/2003, UKF in Nitra.

The consideration of the functional condition is a part of taking care of elderly people and it is a principle of the nursing consideration. The level of self-sufficiency is evaluated by nurses working in inpatient medical and social institutions and nurses involved in primary care within the scope of the nursing anamnesis. From the practical standpoint, the knowledge is most important how the patient is able to manage activities of his/her daily life. Many functional tests are used for testing, which serve for objective evaluation of the degree of dependence in an elderly patient, for estimating the load and quantitative needs of the nursing personnel, or help in decisions on the indication of services of the home and social care or situation into permanent institutional care.
The target of the work was to determine the ability of the self-care in hospitalized seniors and to determine the deficiency in activities of the daily life through the mediation of functional tests, to compare results of the consideration of the degree of dependence by several functional tests, and to consider the agreement and thus the reliability of the diagnostic conclusion by a nurse. The next target is to affect the ability of taking care of themselves through planned interventions and to determine the efficacy of the applied nursing activities in a selected group from NIC classification systems (Nursing Interventions Classifications) by comparing the ability to take care of oneself at the beginning and at the end of the hospitalization. For the implementation of the research, we used quasi-experiment as the main method. The supplementary method was observation, contents analysis of the nursing documentation and comparison.
The measurement scales for objectivizing the deficiency in the self-care were manifested as practical tools for the nursing diagnostics as well as for the measurement of the degree of a progress of the senior functional capacity and for the nursing care efficacy consideration.

If we are searching for the way of understanding Romany people in questions concerning their attitude to the life, health and disease or style of life from the position of staff members of helping professions, it is necessary to consider cultural traditions, which affected their lives for centuries and which affect them to a certain extent even at the present time. The contribution deals with problems of factors principally affecting the existence of Romany people in the majority society and playing an important role in providing the culturally differentiated nursing care. Only mutual understanding of specific features of majority and minority societies and subsequent searching for common way in solving the problems can contribute to improving the social and cultural position of Romany people, which will be subsequently also reflected in the field of the health condition and style of life of the Romany population.

The work presented here offers an analysis of the literature dealing with the rigidity and tone of skeletal muscles, spasticity and mechanoreceptors in the locomotor apparatus, nerve reflexes associated with the muscle tone control and topographic and directional specificity between the skin and intensity of the stretching reflex and H-reflex of skeletal muscles. The purpose of the search for the literature is to provide a scientific basis for a derivation of hypotheses for dissertation theses, the scope of which is the effect of the skin receptor stimulation on the muscle tone in selected muscles in healthy individuals and in patients with central motoneuron syndrome. The analysis of the literature demonstrated that the muscle tone has its passive (EMG silent) and active (EMG active) components. The passive component is given by viscoelastic characteristics of muscle tissues, i.e. of muscle fibres and interstitial connective tissue. The research indicates that the connective tissue also contains contractile cells, thus being also capable of active contractions. The active component is given by nervous reflexes, which are induced by a muscle extension: by the stretching segmental reflex and transcortical reflex. These reflexes are active in enhanced requirements for the joint stabilization. The spasticity can be defined as a disorder of the sensomotor system characterized by an increase in the muscle tone depending on the rate of the extension. The spasticity is one of components of central motoneuron syndrome together with an attenuation of flexor reflexes, muscle weakness and loss of the skill. An important role in this process belongs to changes in the activation of the stretching reflex due to the hyperexcitability of alpha motoneurons and reduction in the inhibition by descendent motor ways. Studies of proprioreceptors can be divided into morphological and electrophysiological ones. In terms of the function, the evaluation is of importance, according to which it is possible to differentiate one from another receptors with slow adaptation (static) detecting the joint situation and receptors with a rapid adaptation (dynamic) detecting the joint movement. The results of this study justify the following formulation of principal hypotheses for our work: 1) we can expect that irritation of skin receptors induces statistically significant changes in the tension of selected muscles and 2) we can expect the specificity between directions of the skin tension and facilitation or inhibition of the muscle tone. The analysis of the literature also significantly contributed to the formation of a homogeneous experimental group, particularly due to conclusions indicating that one group cannot simultaneously include patients with CMP and transversal medullar lesion since in terms of neurophysiology, these are no identical pathological conditions. A finding is also of importance that an increase in the passive muscle rigidity by connective tissue contractures or muscle fibrosis negatively affects the reflex action on skeletal muscles.

Based on skeletal demonstrations, the Mycobacterium tuberculosis occurred as soon as in the Neolith. According to the statistics by the World Health Organization, nine million people gets tuberculosis every year worldwide and above three million people die due to this disease annually. The purpose of the work was to describe the rate of the vaccination, time and occurrence of reactions after the vaccination with Bacile Calmette Gérin [BCG] vaccine on first days of the life. We established three hypotheses: H1 - The occurrence of undesirable effects after the BCG vaccine is rather frequent; H2 - The side effects after the BCG vaccination and further risk factors are related to deviations from the vaccination calendar; H3 - The most frequent reason for postponing subsequent vaccination according to the vaccination calendar after the BCG vaccination is non-healed scar.
We employed a quantitative research by the form of an epidemiological descriptive study with the technique of data accumulation and analysis. The data were acquired from general practitioners for children and youth. They were entered into the EpiData-Entry programme. The data processing was carried out in the EpiData Analysis programme.
The research domain consisted of a sample group including children born in 2004, 2005 and 2006 - total of 1941 children. We choose a sample group of 804 children (410 boys and 393 girls). Non-healed reaction after the BCG vaccination occurred in 307 children (38.18% from the sample group), the total number of reactions being of 439. The most frequent complication in the occurring undesirable reactions was non-healed scar - 62.4%. Children without side and undesirable reactions after the BCG vaccination received the first dose of DTPHibHB (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, haemophilic type B infections and viral hepatitis B) in the 14th week in average (median age 13 weeks) after the birth. Children with side and undesirable reactions after the BCG vaccination received their first dose in average in the 20th week (median age of 18 weeks) after the birth. In children with a reaction after the BCG vaccination, the first vaccination dose according to the vaccination calendar was postponed on average by 6.1 weeks. This postponing is statistically significant (p

In the life of a child and his/her family, disease brings a stress situation, particularly if hospitalization of the child is necessary. The child realizes the disease depending on his/her age and different children perceive their diseases in different ways. The restriction to movements and separation of children from friends and parents can result in anxiety.
Play is a children activity, which offers children with pleasure and is very important for their social, intellectual and emotional development. During the play, the child is familiarized with unknown words and with all the causes of anxiety. By the controlled play, the nurses acquaint children with their own diseases and explain them what can happen in the hospital. The free play helps the children to become free of problems and to gain self-confidence. The hospital is more friendly in the presence of playrooms, toys and children. It is of a great importance that the nurse should include plays ad play elements into all the nursing activities since ill children usually do not play spontaneously. Thus, the nurses must actively offer the plays.
Plays fall into nursing activities, which form an integral part of the nursing process. The nursing process is a systematic approach to the nursing care consisting of the following five parts: anamnesis, diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation (Tóthová, 2009).
The target of the contribution presented here is mapping the provisions focused on free time of children from different age categories and role of particular healthcare professionals and other staff members in its organization. The study was processed based on a secondary analysis of the nursing and pedagogic literature and practical experience of the authors resulting from the work with hospitalized children.
The authors defined roles of healthcare professionals and other staff members in the organization of free time of hospitalized children. The authors proposed types of plays depending on particular age groups and pointed out a wide scale of plays for hospitalized children.
There is an important role of the nurse providing the operation of the playroom and choice of suitable toys. She is particularly supposed to secure the safety in all the play activities.

The purpose of the work presented here is a comparison of two programmes of the solution to children obesity respecting this problem as whole. The authors of materials analyzed are the societies STOB in the Czech Republic and MEND in Great Britain. These are particularly PPS presentations, web sites, promoting materials and also direct communication with representatives of these societies and rich expert experience of one of the present authors. The attention was paid to similar features of and differences in the programmes considered.
The first part of the article is aimed at risks of obesity and alarming statistics exerting the extent of the obesity and overweight in childhood. In this comparison, the Czech Republic has a relatively good position, but this should not lead to underestimating the problem. In the main part of our work, we describe successful methods of the solution to children obesity and present data on the programmes compared. Their methodology is very similar and both programmes achieve good results. The most essential difference can be found in the attitude to the evaluation, which is enviable in the case of the programme MEND - it is long-term and based on evidence. There are also different attitudes of governments and expert public to children obesity problems. The reduction in excess kilograms in Britain is not only matter of individuals, but the healthy life style is supported at the level of the whole society.
It is necessary to start taking our advantages (we are able to take meals within the family at one table to a more considerable extent compared to west culture, we grow vegetable foodstuffs and are used to spend free time in active manner, etc.), which should not be depreciated due to the consumption-oriented style of life.

In nurses, the approach to and fear of death can affect their attitude to dying patients and thus, in the course of the education in nursing, it is suitable to discuss problems of the death and fear of the death. The target of the present research was to find the measure of the anxiety and fear of death in nursing students depending on the year of study, age and experience with the death of a close relative or friend. The measurements were based on the scale of anxiety and fear of death (The Revised Collet-Lester Fear of Death Scale - FODS) by Collett and Lester (1969) measuring the fear in four categories: fear of one's own death, fear of dying, fear of death of other people and of dying of other persons, with the help of a five-degree Likert scale. In the interpretation of the data, the average value within the scale of 1-5 is presented here, where 1 means no fear and 5 stands for very strong fear. The Student t-test was employed to compare the parameters examined. The research included 73 students of nursing at the FZS OU in the academic year 2009/2010. It was found that the students are most afraid of their own dying (4.04 in average). Fifty-two percent of the students expressed a very strong fear of the process of their own dying, particularly fear of restricting the self-sufficiency in dying, decrease in physical forces and slow dying. The fear of the dying process itself was smaller in students under 25 years of age (p = 0.017). The respondents exert the smallest fear of their own death (2.52 in average). In terms of the death of close persons (3.52 in average), the students were most afraid of a loss of a close human and loneliness. As to the process of dying (3.34), there was the largest fear of seeing a close human suffering from pain. The education and aimed training in the field of the death and dying in university students of health branches can reduce the anxiety and fear of the death and thus, teaching the palliative care for general nurses should include an analysis of problems of one's own death and dying and fear of the death. The scale for the quantification of the anxiety and fear of death CL-FODS could become a suitable tool for determining the efficacy of teaching and courses in this field.

The article acquaints the reader with partial results of a grant project focused on the role of community nurses in the system of Czech health services. The community is today considered as an important environment for mothers, suckling babies and families for granting the health care, which is safe, kind, economical and of good quality. According to G. Leifer, the contemporary obstetric practice is aimed at the best experience of the whole family and the obstetrics recognizes the family as a unique system.
For the project implementation, a controlled interview was implemented with 1007 physicians and 1005 nurses - professionals, and with 2020 citizens - laymen. The primary intention is the analysis of crucial opinions concerning the possibility of the role of nurses and midwives in the field of the community care. The SADS programme was employed for the statistical processing, and classing of the first and second degrees was provided. The contribution presented here is focused on the field of providing the care for women by midwives within the community care. A majority of citizens inquired do not know what the contemporary nature of the work of midwives for the community care in the Czech Republic is. Their standpoint concerning this question is dependent on the gender, age and education. The professional as well as lay public agrees in the opinion that the midwife for the community care should particularly provide the care under field conditions. The physicians, in contrast to nurses and citizens, more frequently consider that services of community midwives are not necessary. The professional as well as lay public unambiguously prefers activities, which are associated with taking prenatal and postnatal care of delivering women and newborns.
In accordance with world and well as Czech legislative basic data, the midwife provides the healthcare and advices to women in the course of pregnancy, during the delivery and in the puerperium (in the case of their physiological nature), conduction of the physiological delivery and taking care of newborns; this healthcare also includes taking the nursing care of women in the field of gynaecology. The midwife in cooperation with the physician furthermore participates in the preventive, therapeutic, diagnostic, rehabilitation, urgent or subsequent care.

In our republic, volunteer activities are currently being less used compared to the situation in abroad. Volunteers are usually included into different activities of organizations acting in many fields of public life (ecology, health and social spheres, culture, sport and education, etc.). Of course, the volunteers are most frequently involved in activities in the health and social spheres.
In the theoretical part, the article presented here deals with general problems of volunteer activities and their use in the field of health and social services. In a further part, it is focused on a description of the research itself and its results. The target of the work was mapping the contemporary condition of using volunteer activities and the measure of the need for volunteers active in social and health services. The qualitative research in these spheres was implemented in the city and surroundings of Teplice, the main research method being inquiring. The data accumulation itself was performed over 2009-2010.
The research results suggest that a large proportion of respondents work with volunteers or are interested in their cooperation. However, numbers of volunteers and frequency of mutual cooperation are prevalently insufficient for particular institutions. The most frequently used volunteer activities were also mapped. The cooperation with volunteers is most appreciated by respondents in terms of the possibility of individual work of a volunteer with his/her clients. In spite of the fact that there is a volunteer centre Ústí nad Labem in the vicinity of the city, institutions in Teplice suffer from a lack of information about possibilities of cooperation. The data obtained indicated that active attitude of institutions to searching for volunteers or attempts aimed at larger promotion of volunteer activities could be helpful in their development.

Anxious disorders belong to most frequently encountered mental disorders in general, since up to 25% of the population suffers by a clinically important anxious disorder at least once in a lifetime. Anxiolytics and antidepressants are particularly used to treat anxiety. and insomnia is treated with sedatives and hypnotics. There are a number of products for the treatment of the anxiety, but in benzodiazepine-group anxiolytics, there is a risk of the tolerance and addiction development. Thus, a great attention is being paid to the investigation of new medicines without these side effects. There are a number of plants, which have been traditionally used for the treatment of anxiety and insomnia and these effects are frequently supported by modern trials. Herbaceous products are frequently used even at the time being, particularly for the treatment of mild problems. Tea mixtures, tinctures, food supplements and registered medicinal products containing extracts from plants are used. Further research of effects of these plants and their components can offer new pharmaceuticals.
In the article presented here, there is an outline of main plants used in the treatment of anxiety and insomnia. The first part of the article is aimed at our original plants and plants cultivated in our country (Cannabis sativa, Coriandrum sativum, Crocus sativus, Eschscholzia californica, Ginkgo biloba, Humulus lupulus, Hypericum perforatum, Lavandula angustifolia, Magnolia officinalis and M. obovata, Matricaria recutita, Melissa officinalis, Rhodiola rosea, Scutellaria spp., Tilia americana and Valeriana officinalis), and the second part deals with exotic plants (Atractylodes macrocephala, Bacopa monnieri, Centella asiatica, Citrus spp., Clitoria ternatea, Echium amoenum, Erythrina mulungu, Morinda citrifolia, Myristica fragrans, Ocimum sanctum, Panax ginseng and P. quinquefolius, Passiflora incarnata, Piper methysticum, Sceletium tortuosum, Withania somnifera, Zingiber officinale and Ziziphus jujuba).

The aim of the research was to determine the prevalence of burnout syndrome and empathy among general nurses working in standard hospital settings (University Hospital Olomouc), and among general nurses working in emergency medical services, as well as to identify the differences in the degree of burnout syndrome and empathy between the two groups. Another objective was to establish whether there is a relationship between burnout syndrome and empathy in the groups of general nurses specified above. Questionnaires MBI-GS (Maslach Burnout Inventory) and IVE (Eysenck Impulsivity Inventory) were used to obtain the data. The research involved 175 respondents. A significantly higher rate of emotional exhaustion was found in hospital nurses (p = 0.001), while the degree of depersonalization was significantly higher in emergency medical services nurses (p = 0.001). The difference in the degree of personal accomplishment was not statistically significant. The relationship between burnout syndrome and empathy was confirmed. A significant weak positive correlation (r = 0.361; p = 0.001) between empathy and emotional exhaustion was found among general nurses working in emergency medical services.

One of the basic tasks of midwives' and other sexual and reproductive care professionals' work is to help people fulfil their family plans. An important tool for achieving this is to offer reliable and relevant information. The aims of this paper are: (1) to map topics currently understood under the term "family planning"; (2) to assess their relevance to the current European situation; (3) to uncover other missing important topics, if needed. Secondary analysis of various documents (e.g. WHO definitions, demographical and medical statistics, relevant research data) showed that the term "family planning" is still being understood only in its negative connotation; thus as a way how not to have children. However, the current situation in developed countries shows that fulfilling parental desires is a similarly important issue. Reproductive healthcare professionals should have a good knowledge of medically assisted reproduction options, their procedures, benefits and risks. They should also be familiar with the causes of infertility (mainly with the avoidable ones), and support their clients on their journey to having a child.

Approaches to taking care of a dying child and its family are of a great importance for the life quality and capability of parents and brothers and sisters in the process of facing the death. Pediatric hospices grant a support and assistance and practical background for children suffering from life threatening diseases, for their family members and close friends. The requirements for the pediatric palliative care are encountered in a great variety of diseases, which are different from diseases in the adulthood, many of them being very rare and familial. The type of the care necessary for the child and its family depends on the diagnosis; the diagnoses are divided into four main groups.

Searching for and satisfaction of the need of patients, which is altered in disease, belong to pillars of modern nursing practice. In providing high-quality nursing care, in each patient/client, it is also necessary to respect his/here ethnic and cultural values, opinions and habits associated with his/her health, however, also with providing the medical care. To be able to plan culturally differentiated care respecting holistic theory for patients/clients who belong to members of a certain minority group, we should know in detail their special features associated with satisfying their basic and higher needs.
The purpose of the contribution is a presentation of results of the analysis of special foreign and Czech literature dealing with trans-cultural nursing practice on the one hand and special features of satisfying higher needs in the Vietnamese minority on the other. The authors, such as M. Leininger, M. Andrews, J. N. Giger, and R. E. Davidhizar belong to leading specialists in the trans-cultural nursing practice in abroad. Madeleine Leininger founded the trans-cultural nursing practice as an independent discipline in the field of nursing. The concept of the trans-cultural nursing was formed by her as early as in the 1950's. She is an author of a number of works dealing with these problems. The contribution concerns a 3-year research project, which is being solved within a grant of the IGA MZ ČR, and whose targets are aimed at providing this holistic nursing care for individuals from the Vietnamese and Chinese minority living in the Czech Republic, corresponding to the need of these citizens resulting from a different cultural environment in the country of their origin.

Provisions of social policy should follow issues of the compatibility of the family and occupational life, for example through the mediation of the flexibility of hours of work, financial support for families and further tools of personal politics. The purpose of the present communication is to offer information on possibilities of concluding part time employment contracts and other forms of occupation with employers developing their activities in South-Bohemian region. Results of pilot exploration, which was performed by the techniques of questionnaires and non-standardized interviews, correspond to the very low frequency of these relationships and further forms of employment throughout the Czech Republic. The results also demonstrate differences in taking advantage of reduced occupational relationships between employers in abroad and domestic employers. This could be interpreted by the fact that flexible forms of employment are more common in foreign companies and thus, their occurrence is in agreement with these trends in Eastern Europe. Reasons for making impossible more frequent implementation of the above mentioned forms are, according to the employees questioned, particularly in larger organizational tediousness, specific orientation of the company or elevation of personal costs. Thus, the drawbacks in the contemporary model of the social politics (for example not flexible Labour Code) and unwillingness of employers to accept these well-tried forms of employment result in problematic position of persons taking care of other people.

The work is aimed at the theme of stigmatization of humans (patients) with mental disorders, which is very important from the standpoint of the society. An individual with a mental disease suffers from consequences of a prejudice and evaluation of his/her disease by other people, which present a principal starting point for attributing him/her marks or stickers - stigma. The stigmatization involves groups of patients, who are specified by the society as carriers of a negative group feature, which affects their position in the society and fulfilling of tasks and which leads to their discrimination. The stigmatization by a mental disorder hits not only patients, but also their care givers, family members, psychiatrists and even psychiatry as a scientific discipline. The work deals with the origin of the concept stigma, sources, forms and mechanisms of the action of the stigma and stigmatization. In the work, a case history is described of a child with mental disorders, who was stigmatized at different levels of the social function, at the level of the school - the teacher and schoolmates, also with a certain participation of the paediatrician of the first contact and subsequent effect on the family - parents. Through the mediation of the case history, the negative effect and consequences of stigmatization hitting the child and its closest environment are analyzed and adequate methods of the de-stigmatization of the patients with mental disorders and also of psychiatry as a principal medicinal discipline are considered. By de-stigmatization of mental diseases, including those occurring in childhood, in people with these diseases, it is necessary to recover their enjoyment of life and dignity and to keep and support their quality of life.

The number of pensioners increased between 2000 and 2006, which holds for old age pensioners as well as for disability pensioners. The increase in the number of old age pensioners was of about 98 thousands in 2006 compared to 2000. The increase of full disability pensioners was about 8 thousands in this period and in partial disability pensioners it was of about 43.5 thousands. Hypothetically, it is possible to believe that there is a certain parallel trend between increasing age of retirement and increasing number of disability pensioners. For a proportion of citizens, the disability retirement is a solution of their health and social problems. Particularly in the generation 50 plus, the development of disability in the Czech Republic is adverse, because of its stepwise growth occurring over several recent years. The number of partial disability pensioners is particularly increasing. The prepared retirement reform includes a proposal for introducing three degrees of disability. The changes should bring a contribution to refinement of the medical advisory process and thus, they should affect a further development of disability.

The psychospiritual transformation of the personality is an extraordinary phenomenon rather frequently occurring in humans in the second half of their lives. This is a period, where life priorities and values are naturally changed. Within the scope of this process, our ego is prepared to give up old formulae of the consensual reality and to adopt new spiritual and formerly extended perception. This can bring new possibilities of knowledge of our own personality and deeper knowledge of relationships with people and surroundings. The research indicates that people, due to psychospiritual transformation, live rather more in spiritual manner, they alter their value orientation and life style in favour of spiritual and more meaningful directions and they exert a higher tolerance, empathy, pro-social feelings, creativity, inner equilibrium and satisfaction. Their ability of direct spiritual - mystic experience increases. This fact is described by an important intuition, coming of meaningful, clever answers to complicated questions.

The change in performing activities concerning the self-management of diabetes mellitus depending on the method and course of educational interventions represents an important parameter of the therapeutic value of education which is, however, not evaluated in practice. The purpose of the present work was to specify differences in activities with respect to diabetes self-management among patients on intensified insulin regimens depending on completing a structured educational programme in the National Endocrinological and Diabetological Institute in L'ubochňa. A further purpose of the work was to establish the effect of the implementation of the activities mentioned on their general satisfaction with the treatment. The satisfaction of the patients was evaluated with the help of the questionnaire "Diabetes Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire". The activities in the diabetes self-management were considered based on a structured dialogue. The sample of respondents included 104 patients with detected first type DM or second type DM hospitalized in the National Endocrinological and Diabetological Institute in L'ubochňa in a period of November 2006 to March 2007. Significant differences in activities important in the diabetes self-management depending on completing the structured educational programme were observed only in the field of using saccharide units (p < 0.05). Statistically non-significant differences were found in performing the regular self-monitoring of glycaemia, adjustments of insulin doses in specific situations as well as in keeping hypoglycaemia records. The lowest satisfaction with the treatment was found in the field of the treatment flexibility. The general satisfaction with the treatment was significantly higher in patients, who implemented a regular glycaemia self-monitoring. The use of saccharide units and adjustments of insulin doses in specific situations had no effect on the general satisfaction with the treatment.

The contribution first elucidates the concept of the critical infrastructure. The problem of the critical infrastructure is reflected in the compilation of crisis plans. The protection of the critical infrastructure is implemented by technical, personal and organisational measures aimed at preventing failures of the function of critical infrastructure and enhancement of the resistance of subjects against these failures and at possible alternative solution for solving actual failures of the function. The contribution is particularly focused on one of subjects of the critical infrastructure, which is the health care. The health care is a system of the state, which should be ready to face all the risks and threatens of the contemporary world based on activities of administrative organs having their competence in health care but also in cooperation with citizens as providers of the first aid. A mutual cooperation should be functional between the subjects considered. The health care system is expected to be also ready to provide the health care in emergency situation, which bring, in addition to other aspects of the endangerment of the safety, situations of mass health involvements. The Ministry of Health as a central authority of the state administration in the sector establishes the target condition for its safety strategy (strategy of crisis management) named the crisis readiness of the health care system. The concept of the crisis readiness of the health care system in the Czech Republic delimits principal task for providing the crisis readiness of the whole health care system in five areas - legal environment, manager environment, expert environment, providing of material sources and preparation of human sources. Within the framework of the state safety system, this subject must be ready to face risks and threatens of the contemporary world, particularly due to the presence of mass destruction weapons - CBRN, terrorism, natural disasters, industrial and traffic accidents and further extraordinary events. The article delimits tasks of the Czech Republic health care system and its connection to the crisis management.

The target of the contribution presented here is to characterize the evidence based nursing, explain particular steps of the evidence based nursing and describe barriers encountered in the course of the evidence based nursing implementation in clinical practice. The evidence based nursing is a process of reaching clinical decisions by nurses through the mediation of taking advantage of available research results, clinical experience and patient's preferences in context of the tools available. If nurses implement the evidence based nursing in context of taking the care and supporting the organizational culture of the institution, then high quality care is given with achieving the best results for the patient, caregiver as well as system. The process of the evidence based nursing has been commonly considered to include five stages. The most recent publications suggest that the stages employed should be extended and mention seven steps. The process of the evidence based nursing is currently described as a procedure consisting of seven steps: step 0 - interviewing; step 1 - clinical question formulation in PICOT format; step 2 - searching for the best evidence; step 3 - critical assessment of the evidence; step 4 - integration of the evidence, clinical experience, values and preferences of the patient in the course of reaching decisions in clinical practice or change; step 5 - evaluation of results of practical decisions or changes based on evidence; step 6 - dissemination (propagation) of results. In order that nurses might implement the evidence based nursing, it is necessary to respect the following factors: a published adequate research concerning the given problem must be available, the nurses must master the skill concerning the attitude to the problem and critical analyses of the research, and practice must make them possible to implement changes resulting from the evidence based nursing. The main barriers encountered in the implementation of the evidence based nursing are those concerning the research, organization and characteristics of nurses.

The contents of the article are focused on the definition of the oral health, which is a very important part of the education for health. The quality care in this field enhances the living standard of the population in all the aspects. The literature search describes competences of the dental surgeon and dental hygienist, emphasizes the need of regular and systematic care for the oral cavity, and mentions types of the prevention with pointing out the primary prevention since its lack results in irreversible damages in the field of oral health. The article furthermore points out the importance of preventive examinations of the oral cavity in children and presents definitions of the dental plaque and predispositions to its origination. The author emphasizes methods and forms of the primary and secondary care for the parodontium, ways of the origination of the dental caries and dental caries prevention, describes diseases of gingivae and subsequent possible involvement of the whole dental supporting apparatus with emphasizing methods how to prevent different types of the dental supporting apparatus diseases. The author also mentions methods of the oral cavity examination, detection of the dental plaque and plaque indices serving for the patient motivation, examination of the intensity of gingival bleeding and indices making it possible to evaluate the condition of the parodontium as whole. The role of fluorine in the human organism and its positive effects in preventing the origination of dental caries together with possible negative effects in overdose are also not omitted. The literature search also includes warnings concerning the danger and impacts resulting from injuries in the oral cavity.
Through suitable motivation and acquiring appropriate habits in taking care of the oral cavity from early years, it is possible to achieve a satisfactory level of the dental hygiene and oral health in all the age groups.