International Journal of Nursing Knowledge

The early identification of developmental delay in adolescents by health professionals is relevant for a good prognosis. However, the clinical indicators of development delay are unclear in nursing science.

To analyze the clinical indicators of delayed development in school adolescents.

A diagnostic accuracy study that investigated delayed development among 385 adolescents in public schools between July and September of 2017. The accuracy measures were analyzed using a latent class analysis based on sensitivity and specificity values.

The delayed development is present in 18.26% of school adolescents. The best accuracy values were as follows: low self-esteem (0.9838), dissatisfaction with own image (0.8400), impaired daily activities (0.9815), internalization behavior (0.8304), outsourcing behavior (0.6367), eating disorders (1.0000), emotional insecurity (0.7093), dependent behavior (0.9836), and altered sexual maturation (0.6085).

Thus, this set of nine clinical indicators can be used by nurse practitioners to confirm delayed development in school adolescents.

This research contributes by providing accurate clinical indicators of delayed development in adolescents. Thus, nurses should recognize delayed development in adolescents through accurate clinical indicators and propose nursing interventions that have positive health results.

The Spanish surgeon Federico Rubio-Galí worked at St. Thomas Hospital in England at the time when Florence Nightingale founded the Nightingale Training School for Nurses (1860). Apparently, he was quite aware of Nightingale's nursing work and expertise and it is known that founded the first Spanish nursing school, in Madrid, in 1896. This led us to wonder if the emergence of his school was purely by chance or was connected to what its founder learned in England. Likely, this learned knowledge led him to apply Nightingale's ideas and to put them into practice in his institution.

We used content analysis techniques and developed categories and subcategories to search for ideological similarities between Nightingale and Rubio-Galí.

The results reflected similarities and coincidences on several issues, mainly related to ventilation, light, infection, hygiene, food, rest, practical training, and observation, among others.

The concepts listed by Nightingale and Rubio-Galí are important for the analysis of nursing from an epistemological and ontological perspective. We concluded that Rubio-Galí was fully aware of Nightingale's ideas and that he implemented several of them in his institution.

Historical research always implies progress in the field of practice and knowledge, permitting arise new issues. The data presented in this article open new questions for practice and the history of Spanish nursing.