Knowledge and attitudes of hospice and palliative care professionals toward diversity and religious literacy in Cyprus: A cross-sectional study

Background: This study is the first to document knowledge-base and knowledge attitudes about cultural competence and religious literacy in hospice and palliative care in Cyprus. Objective: The aim of this article is to investigate and document the knowledge-base and attitudes toward advancing knowledge and expertise of hospice and palliative care professionals in Cyprus. Measurements: A cross-sectional self-administered online survey, which reached 80 hospice and palliative care professionals employed in the sector, was used. The response rate was 64%, which increases the generalizability of the results. Forty-one surveys were completed fully and included in the study. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Frederick University in Cyprus (EEBK EP 2019.01.28). Results: This study shows that self-awareness, reflexivity, and respect toward the other and other people's culture and religion are associated with the current knowledge-base of the professionals, as well as attitudes toward future learning opportunities, lifelong learning, and initiating learning between professionals and agencies. The results present three themes: knowledge development, knowledge empowerment, and knowledge exchange. Conclusions: Professionals and organizations need to nurture and promote lifelong learning, supervision, and enable individual practitioners to engage with activities that will enhance their self-awareness, reflexivity, and attitude toward the unique identities of others

Mindfulness and spirituality: Therapeutic perspectives

Social aspects that relate to beliefs and spirituality are subjects of the soul and mind, material to be studied out of the materialistic world. They transcend the body and nest in the experiences of the soul. Nonetheless, taught by mindfulness, a practice that stems from eastern spirituality the religious and/or the spiritual are experiences lived through the body. We conducted a pilot cross-sectional study to test the hypothesis that mindfulness correlates with spiritual beliefs. The results provide insight on the potential impact of mindfulness interventions in patients that value spirituality and metacognitive beliefs in the psychotherapeutic process. These preliminary findings provide a potential insight into the possible mechanisms underlying the application of mindfulness in psychotherapy

The impact of the Art Therapy Large Group, an educational tool in the training of art therapists, on post-qualification professional practice

This article reports the findings of a Likert scale survey that was sent to past graduates of the MA Art Psychotherapy, Goldsmiths, University of London asking them about the relevance of their experience in the Art Therapy Large Group (ATLG) to their subsequent employment as art therapists or work in another capacity. The ATLG comprises all the students and staff in a psychodynamically based experiential group that meets six times during the year. Survey questions were drawn from previously devised theory and related to learning relevant to the workplace and the development of professional identity. Though there was a low response rate (20%), there were some significant findings, namely that graduates found the ATLG to be helpful in their work, whether this was art therapy or non-art therapy work, and that those who had studied part-time were much more positive about the applicability of their learning in the group to their work than those who had studied full-time. The findings suggest that the ATLG has a particular role in meeting key performance indicators in professional regulation and teaching and in quality assurance and employability policies in higher education. Finally, the potential for the use of the ATLG beyond the university in the public, private and voluntary sectors is suggested

Do the regulatory standards require religious literacy of U.K. health and social care professionals?

Health and social care professionals need sufficient religious literacy in order to handle the complexities of religious beliefs and practices, including the growing numbers who identify with other belief systems and those who claim to identify with no religion. The extent to which the need for religious literacy has been formalised was examined in an analysis of regulatory frameworks for health and social care professionals in the UK. Although all but one of the regulators make some reference to religion and beliefs, they are silent on the question as to what is meant by religion and beliefs. Some standards include a requirement not to impose one’s own beliefs on others, but there is very little requirement to develop a reflective, self-critical awareness of one’s own stance. Likewise, some standards refer to knowledge and skills required but greater specificity is required for these to be meaningful

UK public’s views and perceptions about the legalisation of assisted dying and assisted suicide

Current debates about assisted dying and assisted suicide cover a series of medical, legal, moral, ethical and religious aspects. Yet, public views on the subject remain underexplored and, therefore, not always accounted for in the formation of public policy. This paper reports on empirical data from a cross-sectional study in the UK in 2019, which examines public views about the legalisation of assisted dying and assis- ted suicide, by means of a self-administered Qualtrics-based survey (self-devised vignettes). A combination of simple random and convenience sampling was used. Participants (n1⁄4297) state their preference that both assisted dying and assisted suicide should be legalised in the UK (n1⁄470%), while doctors should be legally allowed to support such wishes of patients with an incurable and painful illness from which they will die (n1⁄462.22%). The paper concludes that public opinion needs to be further accounted for in policymaking and discourses regarding patient autonomy and dignity of care

Are codes of ethics promoting religious literacy for social work practice?

As codes of ethics play at least a symbolic, if not educational, role in highlighting and informing professional priorities, 16 codes of ethics for social work practice were examined for references to religion and belief and analysed against the four domains of Dinham’s religious literacy framework. Although religion and belief are mentioned in all but two of the documents, approximately half the surveyed codes only mention religion and belief in respect of either knowledge or skills. Some recognise the need for social workers to be aware of their own biases, but very few recognise the need to explain what is meant by religion and belief, despite these terms being in flux. While codes of ethics can contribute to the development of religious literacy among social workers, this requires social workers who already have some religious literacy to actively participate when codes of ethics are being revised

Integrating religion and belief in social work practice: an exploratory study

This exploratory study examines how social work practitioners in England integrate service users’ religion, belief and spiritual identities. The study involved 34 semi-structured interviews with Qualified Social Workers and took a qualitative investigational perspective. By means of thematic analysis, the study suggests that practitioners employ either avoidant or utilitarian approaches, which may indeed be a coping strategy before the vast religious plurality in practice. The study also highlights when professionals perceive religion, belief and spirituality important. Those times are a) initial assessments, b) conditional intervention, c) referrals and d) response to this subject when safeguarding and child protection issues arise

A novel horizontal to vertical spectral ratio approach in a wired structural health monitoring system

This work studies the effect ambient seismic noise can have on building constructions, in comparison with the traditional study of strong seismic motion in buildings, for the purpose of structural health monitoring. Traditionally, engineers have observed the effect of earthquakes on buildings by usage of seismometers at various levels. A new approach is proposed in which acceleration recordings of ambient seismic noise are used and horizontal to vertical spectra ratio (HVSR) process is applied, in order to determine the resonance frequency of movement due to excitation of the building from a strong seismic event. The HVSR technique is widely used by geophysicists to study the resonance frequency of sediments over bedrock, while its usage inside buildings is limited. This study applies the recordings inside two university buildings attached to each other, but with different construction materials and different years of construction. Also there is HVSR application in another much older building, with visible cracks in its structure. Sensors have been installed on every floor of the two university buildings, and recordings have been acquired both of ambient seismic noise and earthquakes. Resonance frequencies for every floor of every building are calculated, from both noise and earthquake records, using the HVSR technique for the ambient noise data and the receiver function (RF) for the earthquake data. Differential acceleration drift for every building is also calculated, and there is correlation with the vulnerability of the buildings. Results indicate that HVSR process on acceleration data proves to be an easy, fast, economical method for estimation of fundamental frequency of structures as well as an assessment method for building vulnerability estimation. Comparison between HVSR and RF technique shows an agreement at the change of resonance frequency as we move to higher floors