An in-depth introduction to arts-based spiritual healthcare: Creatively seeking and expressing purpose and meaning

Illness Experiences of Brazilian People Who Were Hospitalized Due to COVID-19 and Faced Long COVID Repercussions in Their Daily Life: A Constructivist Grounded Theory Study

Long COVID is a multisystem condition that has multiple consequences for the physical, mental, and social health of COVID-19 survivors. The impact of the long COVID condition remains unclear, particularly among middle-aged and older adults, who are at greater risk than younger people of persisting symptoms associated with COVID-19. Therefore, we aimed to understand the experiences of middle-aged and older people who had been hospitalized for COVID-19 and the repercussions of long-term COVID symptoms in their daily lives. A qualitative study was carried out, adopting the framework of the constructivist grounded theory (CGT) proposed by Kathy Charmaz. Fifty-six middle-aged and older adult participants from the southern region of Brazil were recruited. Data were gathered from semi-structured telephone interviews. Concomitantly a comparative analysis was performed to identify categories and codes using the MaxQDA® software (version 2022). Three subcategories were identified: (1) experiencing COVID-19 in the acute phase; (2) oscillating between 'good days' and 'bad days' in long COVID; and (3) (re)constructing identity. These concepts interact with each other and converge upon the central category of this study: recasting oneself to the uniqueness of the illness experience of long COVID. Our findings provided insights related to the disruption in the lives of long COVID-19 sufferers who still live with persistent symptoms of the disease, including physical, social, family, emotional and spiritual repercussions. Likewise, this study may aid in developing friendly and welcoming social environments, lowering stigma and prejudice towards patients with long COVID, and fostering prompt and suitable policy support and mental health care for these individuals.

Perceived Barriers to Providing Spiritual Care in Palliative Care among Professionals: A Portuguese Cross-Sectional Study

Spiritual care is an important dimension of palliative care (PC) and a facet of holistic care that helps ill people find meaning in their suffering and lives. This study aims to: (a) develop and test the psychometric properties of a new instrument, Perceived Barriers to Spiritual Care (PBSC); (b) explore participants' perceptions of how prevalent those (pre-identified) barriers are; and (c) examine the association of their personal and professional characteristics with those perceptions. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out using a self-reporting online survey. In total, 251 professionals registered with the Portuguese Association of Palliative Care (APCP) completed the study. The majority of respondents were female (83.3%), nurses (45.4%), had more than 11 years of professional experience (66.1%), did not work in PC (61.8%), and had a religious affiliation (81.7%). The psychometric assessment using PBSC provided sound evidence for its validity and reliability. The three most common perceived barriers were late referral for palliative care (78.1%), work overload (75.3%), and uncontrolled physical symptoms (72.5%). The least commonly perceived barriers were different spiritual beliefs among professionals (10.8%), differences between the beliefs of professionals and patients (14.4%), and the shame of approaching spirituality in a professional context (26.7%). The findings show there is some relationship between sex, age, years of professional experience, working in PC, having a religious affiliation, the importance of spiritual/religious beliefs, and responses to the PBSC tool. The results highlight the importance of advanced training in spirituality and intervention strategies. Further research is needed to properly study the impacts of spiritual care and establish outcome assessments that accurately reflect the effects of the various spiritual care activities.