Qualities of culturally and religiously sensitive practice: a cross-sectional study

Background: Culture and religion influence lived experience and particularly dying and grieving. Research has largely focused on exploring culturally and religiously sensitive practices, but not necessarily in palliative and hospice care or across nations. Acquired knowledge from the more advanced end-of-life care systems (eg the UK) tends to be generalized to other contexts where its cultural appropriation is not tested. Aim: This study explored the different qualities, among hospice and palliative professionals in Cyprus, describing cultural competence, cultural humility, and religious literacy. Design: A cross-sectional study of 41 palliative and hospice professionals in Cyprus, with the use of a 5-point Likert style questionnaire (a = 0.898). Setting: The study took place in Cyprus and participants were recruited from across palliative and hospice care organizations, including the only hospice in Cyprus, Cyprus Association of Cancer Patients and Friends (PASYKAF), and the Cyprus Anti-Cancer Society (CACS). Results: This study found that there are four main qualities that lead to effective culturally and religiously sensitive practice—informed decision-making, respect, adaptability, and nonjudgmental practice. Conclusions: Future education and training of professionals can consider these findings to appropriate approaches in practice that fit the Cypriot end-of-life care context more effectively

Integrating the Global Agenda of Social Work and Social Development in the Republic of Cyprus

Cyprus is a nation of great history, old and new, that makes up a controversial and often stressful environment in which social work is practiced. The intent of this paper is to highlight the Cypriot context and discuss how the Global Agenda is integrated in it. Drawing on the key objectives of the Global Agenda — promoting social and economic equalities; promoting the dignity and worth of peoples; promoting community and environmental sustainability; and, strengthening recognition of the importance of human relationships — the paper explores the challenges and barriers that social work in the nation faces in an attempt to promote the wellbeing and growth of communities, families and individuals. With consideration to the many and rich initiatives toward increasing social solidarity, collaboration and community engagement, the paper makes suggestions to overcome the challenges that prevent social work from fully committing to the agenda

Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS): validation in a Greek general hospital sample

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) has been used in several languages to assess anxiety and depression in general hospital patients with good results.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The HADS was administered to 521 participants (275 controls and 246 inpatients and outpatients of the Internal Medicine and Surgical Departments in 'Attikon' General Hospital in Athens). The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) were used as 'gold standards' for depression and anxiety respectively.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The HADS presented high internal consistency; Cronbach's α cofficient was 0.884 (0.829 for anxiety and 0.840 for depression) and stability (test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient 0.944). Factor analysis showed a two-factor structure. The HADS showed high concurrent validity; the correlations of the scale and its subscales with the BDI and the STAI were high (0.722 – 0.749).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The Greek version of HADS showed good psychometric properties and could serve as a useful tool for clinicians to assess anxiety and depression in general hospital patients.</p

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

Epidemiology of ATTRV30M neuropathy in Cyprus and the modifier effect of complement C1q on the age of disease onset.

BACKGROUND: ATTRV30M amyloidosis is a lethal autosomal dominant sensorimotor and autonomic neuropathy caused by amyloid deposition composed of aggregated misfolded TTR monomers with the V30M mutation. The age of onset in patients with ATTRV30M varies in different foci and the mechanism behind it is still unknown. METHODS: The tertiary neurology center following all ATTRV30M patients in Cyprus was used to collect demographic data to estimate; prevalence, incidence, penetrance, anticipation, time from disease onset to diagnosis and transplantation. Ocular, cardiac and leptomeningeal involvement in transplanted patients was explored. Correlation of C1q tagging SNPs with age of disease onset was carried out. RESULTS: Prevalence and incidence for ATTRV30M neuropathy in Cyprus are 5.4/100,000 and 0.3/100,000 respectively. Mean age of onset is 40.6 years and anticipation is 8.3 years. Penetrance reaches 51% and 75% by the ages of 50 and 80 years respectively. In liver transplanted patients rates of ocular, cardiac and leptomeningeal involvement were estimated to be 60%, 20% and 16%, respectively. C1q polymorphisms correlated with age of disease onset. CONCLUSIONS: ATTRV30M neuropathy has a rising prevalence in Cyprus due to improved survival of patients. Late onset complications are becoming a major problem. Complement C1q appears to be a modifier in this disease

Qualities of culturally and religiously sensitive practice: a cross-sectional study

Background: Culture and religion influence lived experience and particularly dying and grieving. Research has largely focused on exploring culturally and religiously sensitive practices, but not necessarily in palliative and hospice care or across nations. Acquired knowledge from the more advanced end-of-life care systems (eg the UK) tends to be generalized to other contexts where its cultural appropriation is not tested. Aim: This study explored the different qualities, among hospice and palliative professionals in Cyprus, describing cultural competence, cultural humility, and religious literacy. Design: A cross-sectional study of 41 palliative and hospice professionals in Cyprus, with the use of a 5-point Likert style questionnaire (a = 0.898). Setting: The study took place in Cyprus and participants were recruited from across palliative and hospice care organizations, including the only hospice in Cyprus, Cyprus Association of Cancer Patients and Friends (PASYKAF), and the Cyprus Anti-Cancer Society (CACS). Results: This study found that there are four main qualities that lead to effective culturally and religiously sensitive practice—informed decision-making, respect, adaptability, and nonjudgmental practice. Conclusions: Future education and training of professionals can consider these findings to appropriate approaches in practice that fit the Cypriot end-of-life care context more effectively

Altered SERCA Expression in Breast Cancer

Background and Objectives: Calcium (Ca2+) signaling is critical for the normal functioning of various cellular activities. However, abnormal changes in cellular Ca2+ can contribute to pathological conditions, including various types of cancer. The maintenance of intracellular Ca2+ levels is achieved through tightly regulated processes that help maintain Ca2+ homeostasis. Several types of regulatory proteins are involved in controlling intracellular Ca2+ levels, including the sarco/endoplasmic reticulum (SR/ER) Ca2+ ATPase pump (SERCA), which maintains Ca2+ levels released from the SR/ER. In total, three ATPase SR/ER Ca2+-transporting (ATP2A) 1-3 genes exist, which encode for several isoforms whose expression profiles are tissue-specific. Recently, it has become clear that abnormal SERCA expression and activity are associated with various types of cancer, including breast cancer. Breast carcinomas represent 40% of all cancer types that affect women, with a wide variety of pathological and clinical conditions. Materials and methods: Using cBioPortal breast cancer patient data, Kaplan–Meier plots demonstrated that high ATP2A1 and ATP2A3 expression was associated with reduced patient survival. Results: The present study found significantly different SERCA specific-type expressions in a series of breast cancer cell lines. Moreover, bioinformatics analysis indicated that ATP2A1 and ATP2A3 expression was highly altered in patients with breast cancer. Conclusion: Overall, the present data suggest that SERCA gene-specific expressioncan possibly be considered as a crucial target for the control of breast cancer development and progression

Ex-situ biological treatment of industrial saline seafood wastewater by salt-tolerant mixed cultures and phytotoxicity evaluation

In the framework of circular economy, this study assessed the ex-situ biodegradation and desalination of saline non-sterilized seafood wastewater (SFW) by new salt-tolerant mixed bacterial cultures, followed by its phytotoxicity evaluation. These cultures were characterized through 16S amplicon sequencing, an advanced tool to process the biodiversity of samples empowering applicability to advanced bioprocessing of SFW. The mixed cultures had high relative abundance of Pseudomonas and Aeromonas, and abundance of Acinetobacter, Myroides and Chryseobacterium. The biodegradation potential, growth kinetics and specific growth rate of the mixed cultures were determined using varying concentrations of SFW (20% and 80% v/v). The process was completed in just 24 h resulting in no odour and colour. The mixed cultures were also combined. Effective Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) removal (36.2-89.1%) was achieved by the mixed cultures and their combinations. The mixed cultures resulted in significant salt content reduction (77.5-83.3%). The considerably lower levels of COD (<900 mg/L) and salt content achieved, in most cases, is a step towards in-situ SFW treatment before entrance to the sewage system. Among all, mixed Pseudomonas sp. dominant cultures were the most promising for further in-situ bioprocessing studies. In addition, the biotreated SFW supernatant, which was not overly-diluted using freshwater, could potentially be reused in agriculture, as the germination index was higher than 50% upon seed and root growth of tomato and lettuce. It contained approximately 0.03% total nitrogen and 0.01% phosphate which may irrigate to plants providing additional nutrients