Spirituality in the continuing education of healthcare professionals: An approach to palliative care.

Objective: A major barrier to the adoption of an approach that integrates spirituality into palliative care is the lack of preparation/education of healthcare professionals on the topic. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a continuing education activity for healthcare professionals addressing spirituality and spiritual care provision to patients and families within palliative care.

Method: We conducted an intervention study using a quantitative pre- and posttest design in a convenience sample of 52 healthcare professionals.

Cross-cultural validation of the Brazilian version of the spiritual care competence scale.

Objective: This study describes the cross-cultural validation and psychometric evaluation of the Spiritual Care Competence Scale - Brazilian Portuguese version. This reliable and valid instrument is recommended in the literature to measure the outcomes of the education process in the development of spiritual care competences.

Method: This is a cross-sectional validation study following the stages proposed by Beaton et al.

Clinical Bioethics Committees: a Brazilian experience.

Since its beginning, Bioethics has been related to medical decision making. In health settings, difficult dilemmas, critical situations, controversial decisions are problems that clinical Bioethics reflects on. Institutional Ethics Committees is a general and ambiguous denomination to many different activities.

[Severe adverse effects: evaluation in research protocols used at a university hospital].

This is a report of the study on incidents cases about severe adverse events from clinical research protocols that were presented to Research Ethic Committee from Hospital de Clínicas de Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil. The adverse events types, classifications and repercussions are presented in a preliminary evaluation from 1543 severe adverse events notified to Hospital in various medicals specialties.

[Informed consent in research: a new approach].

Introduction: The Informed Consent allows the person invited to participate of a research project to understand the procedures, risks, discomforts, benefits and rights involved; determining an autonomic decision. We want to verify in the informed consent process the adequacy of given information to research subjects in a collective way.

Methods: A research project was chosen from the gynecologic area.