What Do Palliative Care Professionals Understand as Spiritual Care? Findings from an EAPC Survey

Effects of spiritual care training for palliative care professionals.

Little is known about the effects of spiritual care training for professionals in palliative medicine. We therefore investigated prospectively the effects of such training over a six-month period. All 63 participants of the three and a half-day training were asked to fill out three questionnaires: before and after the training, as well as six months later. The questionnaires included demographi...

Spiritual Care Education of Health Care Professionals

Nurses and health care professionals should have an active role in meeting the spiritual needs of patients in collaboration with the family and the chaplain. Literature criticizes the impaired holistic care because the spiritual dimension is often overlooked by health care professionals. This could be due to feelings of incompetence due to lack of education on spiritual care; lack of inter-prof...

Palliative care; what do you really mean?

Syria: What should health care professionals do?

The Syrian conflict started in March 2011 with civil unrest and has now progressed to civil war [1]. The death toll stands at more than 100 000 men, women and children [2]. The UN Human Rights Council has accused both the Syrian government and the opposition of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity [3]. Within a few years, Syria has evolved from the world’s second largest refugee-ho...

European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) recommended framework for the use of sedation in palliative care.

The European Association for Palliative Care (EAPC) considers sedation to be an important and necessary therapy in the care of selected palliative care patients with otherwise refractory distress. Prudent application of this approach requires due caution and good clinical practice. Inattention to potential risks and problematic practices can lead to harmful and unethical practice which may unde...