Influence Of Spirituality In Pediatric Cancer Management: A Systematic Review

Context: Pediatric cancer is a wide challenge for the patients, family and health care team. They must deal with anxiety, distress, and pain. Thereby, to find meaning for this journey, they use different coping strategies, among which, spirituality appears to be a way, providing well-being and hope.Objective: The purpose of this review was to analyze the influence of spirituality in childhood cancer care, involving biopsychosocial aspects of child, family, and health professionals facing cancer.Data Sources: To achieve this goal, a systematic review of literature was conducted via electronic databases Scopus, MEDLINE and PubMed using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms: “spiritualityâ€, “neoplasm†and “pediatricâ€.Study Selection: Through this search it was found 65 articles. After analyzing them by abstract 13 met the eligibility criteria and were entirely read before included in the final sample.Data Extractions: sys Most of the studies stated that spirituality helps pediatric patients and their families to find a positive meaning from cancer experience, turning better the management of child. Besides, health practitioners may be able to facilitate this process working as a multidisciplinary team, providing to patient an unabridged care. Results: In this context, previous studies stated that when health care team respects patient’s spirituality their connection becomes stronger allowing confidence to take place, promoting treatment engagement. Spirituality also revealed to be a psychological support that acts improving life’s quality.Conclusion: So, it is necessary to promote a deep discussion about this topic since graduation, providing humanized care to child with cancer by qualified health practitioners

Ways to Measuring Quality of Life in Mental Health

As quality is of life considered as a measure of clinical outcome that prioritizes client assessment itself and the effects of a disease, a life change or a treatment has on their daily life and their level of satisfaction and well-being, their evaluation allows obtain a safe parameter for implementing clinical interventions that may have more positive impact on the lives of these people. It is believed that investigate the QoL of a given population is a strategy that will enable to broaden the understanding of the problems experienced by patients in order to facilitate effective future interventions, improving the quality of lived days. This information can also be used to identify patients at higher risk of problems and thus anticipate interventions, contributing to health promotion thereof. Nevertheless, there is currently a growing interest in transforming the QoL in a quantitative measure. To this end, the measurement of quality of life through the perception of the patient has been recommended. Some studies indicate that the measurement of quality of life the mental patient is an indicator of the care he receives and that this issue should be included in the assessment and care planning. There are few studies witch accessed the influence of health intervention on patients ‘quality of life, anxiety, and depressive symptom levels. With this brief contribution, we hope can deepen discussion regards public health and mental wellbeing, as well as the options of measurement instruments to assess mental health interventions and thus able to gather more arguments to answer the following question: What`s the best way for measuring quality of life in Mental health

Characterisation of microbial attack on archaeological bone

As part of an EU funded project to investigate the factors influencing bone preservation in the archaeological record, more than 250 bones from 41 archaeological sites in five countries spanning four climatic regions were studied for diagenetic alteration. Sites were selected to cover a range of environmental conditions and archaeological contexts. Microscopic and physical (mercury intrusion porosimetry) analyses of these bones revealed that the majority (68%) had suffered microbial attack. Furthermore, significant differences were found between animal and human bone in both the state of preservation and the type of microbial attack present. These differences in preservation might result from differences in early taphonomy of the bones. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved