Empowering refugee families in transit: the development of a culturally competent and compassionate training and support package

Background: Refugee parents who fled conflicts suffered violence and traumas and face huge challenges in supporting the health and welfare of their children whilst in transit. Aims: To describe the development of a culturally competent and compassionate Training and Support Package (TSP) for nurses, social and health care workers and volunteers, with a focus on parenting needs among unsettled refugees fleeing conflict. Methods: The multi-method approach included: a scoping review covering parenting needs of refugees fleeing conflict zones; collection of stories from refugee parents, healthcare workers and volunteers via a mobile application; discussions between team members; a piloted and evaluated curriculum. Results: High levels of family distress and deterioration of parental identity were identified. Informed by these results, the curriculum is articulated along twenty bite-sized learning units, covering four age stages of childhood as well as targeting adults’ wellbeing. Pilot training was evaluated positively confirming feasibility and usefulness of TSP. Conclusions: Unsettled refugee parents fleeing conflicts face psychosocial and practical difficulties negatively affecting their parenting skills. Care workforce should be trained in order to provide culturally competent and compassionate support to help these families. Open access digital platforms are promising as autodidactic and self-help tools amongst hard-to-reach populations

Socially assistive robots in health and social care: Acceptance and cultural factors. Results from an exploratory international online survey

Aim: This study explored the views of an international sample of registered nurses and midwives working in health and social care concerning socially assistive robots (SARs), and the relationship between dimensions of culture and rejection of the idea that SARs had benefits in these settings. Methods: An online survey was used to obtain rankings of (among other topics) the extent to which SARs have benefits for health and social care. It also asked for free text responses regarding any concerns about SARs. Results: Most respondents were overwhelmingly positive about SARs' benefits. A small minority strongly rejected this idea, and qualitative analysis of the objections raised by them revealed three major themes: things might go wrong, depersonalization, and patient‐related concerns. However, many participants who were highly accepting of the benefits of SARs expressed similar objections. Cultural dimensions of long‐term orientation and uncertainty avoidance feature prominently in technology acceptance research. Therefore, the relationship between the proportion of respondents from each country who felt that SARs had no benefits and each country's ratings on long‐term orientation and uncertainty avoidance were also examined. A significant positive correlation was found for long‐term orientation, but not for uncertainty avoidance. Conclusion: Most respondents were positive about the benefits of SARs, and similar concerns about their use were expressed both by those who strongly accepted the idea that they had benefits and those who did not. Some evidence was found to suggest that cultural factors were related to rejecting the idea that SARs had benefits

The importance of being a compassionate leader: the views of nursing and midwifery managers from around the world

Introduction: Despite the importance of compassionate leadership in health care, many of the existing publications do not account for the effect of culture. The aim of this study is to explore the views of nursing and midwifery managers from different countries in relation to the definition, advantages, and importance of compassion. Methodology: A cross-sectional, descriptive, exploratory online survey was conducted across 17 countries, containing both closed and open-ended questions. Data from N = 1,217 respondents were analyzed using a directed hybrid approach focusing only on qualitative questions related to compassion-giving. Results: Four overarching themes capture the study’s results: (1) definition of compassion, (2) advantages and importance of compassion for managers, (3) advantages and importance of compassion for staff and the workplace, and (4) culturally competent and compassionate leadership. Discussion: Innovative research agendas should pursue further local qualitative empirical research to inform models of culturally competent and compassionate leadership helping mangers navigate multiple pressures and be able to transculturally resonate with their staff and patients

Evaluation of the cultural competence of physicians' and nurses' in pediatric hospitals

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of cultural competence of the nurses and the physicians of pediatric hospital. Material-method: The study is a descriptive cross-sectional study with synchronical design. The sample of the study was consisted of 507 health professionals who work in 3 pediatric hospitals of Athens and they were chosen by convenience sampling. Results: The analysis revealed 6 factors (Knowledge, Skills, Encounters, Awareness and Training/Education) with high reliability (Cronbach's a >0.7). It was found that professionals, who have lived abroad, had higher scores to the factors Knowledge, Skills and Situations (p 0,7). Βρέθηκε ότι οι επαγγελματίες που έχουν ζήσει στο εξωτερικό είχαν υψηλότερη βαθμολογία στους παράγοντες Γνώση, Δεξιότητες και Καταστάσεις (p <0,001). Επιπλέον οι επαγγελματίες υγείας που είχαν παρακολουθήσει σεμινάρια διαπολιτισμικής υγείας είχαν υψηλότερη βαθμολογία στους παράγοντες Γνώση (p <0,001), Δεξιότητες (p=0,018) και Εκπαίδευση/Κατάρτιση (p=0,001). Οι κοινωνικές συναναστροφές με ανθρώπους από διαφορετική πολιτισμική καταγωγή βρέθηκε να σχετίζονται ανεξάρτητα με τους παράγοντες Γνώση (p=0,001), Δεξιότητες (p=0,001) και Συνειδητοποίηση (p=0,026). Συμπεράσματα: Η εκπαίδευση και η ευαισθητοποίηση σε ζητήματα πολυπολιτισμικότητας των επαγγελματιών υγείας που ασχολούνται με παιδιά, αποτελεί αναπόδραστη ανάγκη

Elective cesarean section as a woman’s choice: a narrative literature review

The natural childbirth is the most indicated way of birth, while the cesarean section (C-section) is an intervening procedure that includes risks and is addressed to women with serious medical contraindications for natural birth. However, there has been a rapid increase in C-section deliveries in recent years. At the same time, there has been a tendency of the couples to choose a C-section without medical evidence. The purpose of the present review is the exploration of the motivation and the factors that urge the new mothers to choose a C-section while there is no medical evidence. In many studies researchers correlate the C-section choice with the increased use of biomedical engineering, the medical malpractice, and the increased concerns of health professionals for possible complications along with the previous delivery experience. A woman chooses the way of delivery under not only external but also internal factors such as personality, beliefs related to the baby’s and her security, the previous traumatic delivery experiences, the preexisting psychological problems and the delivery phobia. The C-section is a way of delivery with certain indications and many times is the only way in order the delivery to be safe for both the mother and the baby. It is very important for the health professionals, in cases where the medical evidence allows the choice, to clarify all the consequences, both positive and negative that could accompany each choice, so that the procedure of the final decision to be made in the best possible way for the benefit of the mother and the baby

Compliance and Health Professionals’ role: The case of osteoporotic patients

Osteoporosis is considered to be a major public health issue worldwide. Despite the large number of effective medication regimens available, patients’ non-compliance in treatment is one of the most common obstacles when attempting to achieve best therapeutic results against osteoporosis. The purpose of this review is to analyze the parameters concerning compliance of osteoporotic patients and to highlight health professionals’ role. Many studies are shown that the compliance in long-term anti-osteoporotic therapeutic schemes is low in developed countries, while it is estimated to be even less in developing countries. Compliance rates are usually lower when the disease is asymptomatic or when the therapy has side effects. There are many factors which lead to non – compliance to treatment regimens, and various techniques that a health professional could utilize in order to improve anti-osteoporotic therapeutic results are presented in this paper. Early identification of potential non-compliant patients is an important first step for health professionals, when aiming at resolving the issue of non-compliance and achieving better therapeutic results. A multi-factor model such as Fracture Liaison Service (FLS), which includes specialized nurses, could optimize the chances of better education, monitoring and achieving treatment compliance for the patient

Looking into the knowledge and attitudes of nurses regarding mourning and burial customs of people with different cultural background

Introduction: Death is an uncomfortable situation for everyone. Due to the nature of nursing profession, a nurse comes everyday face to face with death. Undoubtedly, this is a difficult procedure that becomes even more difficult when the deceased has a different cultural or ethnic background. Aim: The aim of the study was to examine the knowledge and attitudes of nurses regarding mourning and burial customs of persons from different cultural backgrounds. Additionally, the study aimed to examine the source of health professionals’ knowledge and the degree of their intention to learn the burial customs and different ways of mourning of different cultures. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study with a convenience sample of 181 nurses employed in the General Hospital of Volos. Due to the lack of a questionnaire adapted and suitable to the needs of the Greek population, a new one was created, based on similar international studies. A pilot study with 30 participants was conducted. The level of significance was bilateral and the statistical significance was set at 0.05. Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS 19.0 statistical program. Results: It emerged from the study that there is a significant positive correlation between the attitude scores and the knowledge of the participants regarding the burial customs and the way of mourning of people with different cultural backgrounds. So, the higher the knowledge the participants had, the more positive was their attitude (p=0,020). It was found that nurses working in a ward with specific protocols about care after death for different cultures had more positive attitude compared to nurses who worked in wards with no such protocol (p=0,012). Furthermore, participants who had been taught, at undergraduate level, about after death multicultural care procedures had significantly more knowledge and more positive attitude compared to participants who had not received such training (p=0,001). Finally, 44.2% of the participants wanted “considerably/very much” to be trained in topics of care and burial customs of people from different cultural backgrounds. Conclusions: Greece in the last twenty years has become a multicultural country. It is needed for healthcare schools to include in their syllabus more courses related to death and care for the end of life, so that healthcare professionals could acquire the appropriate knowledge and become competent to care for the dying patient with respect to his/her right of a dignified death

Reliability and validity of the Clinical Cultural Competency Questionnaire-Greek version (CCCQ-G)

Introduction: Cultural competency is a term that is widely used regarding health care providers around the world. As a consequence, a plethora of new instruments have been introduced in order to describe, evaluate and measure the new term of cultural competence. Objective: This study aimed to determine the validity and reliability of the Clinical Cultural Competency Questionnaire-Greek version (CCCQ-G) among Healthcare Professionals. Methods: Two hundred and twenty (220) health professionals, from three (3) general pediatric hospitals in Greece completed the questionnaire. Internal consistency was determined and convergent validity was further examined with the intercorrelations of subscales. The structure of the questionnaire was investigated using factor analysis. Results: Analysis resulted in a six-factor solution, explaining 55 % of the variance. All subscales resulting from the factor analysis had alphas that ranged from 0.71 to 0.91. Correlations among the scales were all statistically significant. Higher scores in most subscales were observed for health care professionals who had attended transcultural health courses. Conclusions: The Greek version of CCCQ was found to possess good reliability and validity, therefore, the instrument could be used in future research studying cultural competence of health care professionals