Learning experiences from an online QI fellowship programme during COVID-19 - a qualitative study.

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, multiple aspects of everyday human existence were disrupted. In contrast, almost all levels of educational learning continued, albeit with modifications, including adaptation to virtual-or online-classroom experiences. This pedagogic transition also occurred in the National Institute of Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration Northwest London's (NIHR ARC NWL) Improvement Leader Fellowship, an annual programme focusing on quality improvement (QI).

Canadian Undergraduate Perspectives on Medical Assistance in Dying for Mental Illness: Does Psychiatric Illness Type, Age, and Exposure to Information Influence Acceptance of MAiD?

Background And Objectives: In 2027, Canadians whose only medical condition is an untreatable mental illness and who otherwise meet all eligibility criteria will be able to request Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD). This study investigates the attitudes of undergraduate students towards widening the scope of MAiD for physical illness for certain psychiatric conditions. We were interested in understanding if age, information, and type of mental illness influenced undergraduates' acceptance or rejection of MAiD for mental illness (MAiD-MI).

Implementing the English health inequalities agenda: addressing challenges to person-level, cross-sectoral data linkage, access and routine use for local authority public health.

Local authorities are central to the implementation of English Integrated Care Systems' health inequalities agendas, embedding public health into population health management planning. They work with partners to deliver a range of 'health determinant' services and facilities for people in a defined geographic area. This work is substantially premised on the use of cross-sectoral data that is linked at the individual level, readily available, longitudinal and contemporaneous.

The quality of death and dying of patients with advanced cancer in hospice care in Uganda and Kenya.

Objectives: Minimal information is available about the quality of dying and death in Uganda and Kenya, which are African leaders in palliative care. We investigated the quality of dying and death in patients with advanced cancer who had received hospice care in Uganda or Kenya.

Methods: Observational study with bereaved caregivers of decedents (Uganda:  = 202; Kenya:  = 127) with advanced cancer who had received care from participating hospices in Uganda or Kenya.

From disease- to people-centred pandemic management: organized communities, community-oriented primary care and health information systems.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the health equity gap between and within countries. Western countries were the first to receive vaccines and mortality was higher among socially deprived, minority and indigenous populations. Surprisingly, many sub-Saharan countries reported low excess mortalities.

Kenyan palliative care providers' and leaders' perceptions of palliative care research needs and support to facilitate rigorous research.

Background: Palliative care (PC) can reduce symptom distress and improve quality of life for patients and their families experiencing life-threatening illness. While the need for PC in Kenya is high, PC service delivery and research is limited. Qualitative research is needed to explore potential areas for PC research and support needed to enable that research.

Research attitudes, practice and literacy among Kenyan palliative care healthcare professionals: an observational, cross-sectional online survey.

Background: While research is needed to advocate for implementation of global agendas to strengthen palliative care, healthcare professionals' research literacy must improve to bridge the gap between evidence and practice. A resurgent focus on North-South power disparities, means attention should also focus on understanding low- and middle-income countries' local agency to implement palliative care research agendas.

Methods: An observational, cross-sectional online survey among Kenyan palliative healthcare professionals currently working at any of the palliative and hospice care organizations operational during January - December 2019, using descriptive statistics.

Untapped potential of nature-based activities for mental health: need for further research.

In April 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated clearly that without immediate and deep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it would be impossible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. A growing body of research shows an increasing reaction to witnessing or experiencing current climate impacts and concern regarding apparent inaction in response, manifests as negative cognitive, emotional, and behavioural responses, including eco-anxiety.

Depressive Symptoms and Palliative Care Concerns Among Patients With Non-communicable Diseases in Two Southern African Countries.

Context: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), associated with health-related suffering, can benefit from palliative care in resource-limited settings, where over four-fifths of these deaths occur.

Objective: To measure the prevalence of depressive symptoms, palliative care-related concerns, physical and other psychological symptoms among adult patients with NCDs in Malawi and Namibia.

Methods: This multi-center, cross-sectional study consecutively recruited outpatients from four tertiary referral hospitals.

Face and content validity, acceptability, feasibility, and implementability of a novel outcome measure for children with life-limiting or life-threatening illness in three sub-Saharan African countries.

Background: The Children's Palliative Care Outcome Scale (C-POS) is the first measure developed for children with life-limiting and -threatening illness. It is essential to determine whether the measure addresses what matters to children, and if they can comprehend and respond to its items.

Aim: To determine the face and content validity, comprehensiveness, comprehensibility, acceptability and feasibility, and implementability of the C-POS.

Tackling racism in UK health research.

set out the barriers and solutions to eliminating inequalities embedded in the UK health research system

'We weren't checked in on, nobody spoke to us': an exploratory qualitative analysis of two focus groups on the concerns of ethnic minority NHS staff during COVID-19.

Objective: To gain exploratory insights into the multifaceted, lived experience impact of COVID-19 on a small sample of ethnic minority healthcare staff to cocreate a module of questions for follow-up online surveys on the well-being of healthcare staff during the pandemic.

Design: A cross-sectional design using two online focus groups among ethnic minority healthcare workers who worked in care or supportive roles in a hospital, community health or primary care setting for at least 12 months.

Participants: Thirteen healthcare workers (11 female) aged 26-62 years from diverse ethnic minority backgrounds, 11 working in clinical roles.

Canadian Undergraduates' Perspectives on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD): A Quantitative Study.

In 2016, Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) became legal in Canada for those suffering a grievous and untreatable medical condition. Currently, it is not available to minors or to those with an untreatable mental illness, although it is likely the scope of MAiD will be widened to include persons with severe and untreatable mental illnesses. However, little is known about the factors predicting acceptance or rejection of MAiD for persons with either a grievous medical condition or an untreatable mental illness.

Unbreakable Resolutions as an Effective Tactic for Self-Control: Lessons From Mahatma Gandhi and a 19th-Century Prussian Prince.

Despite the relative consensus in the self-management literature that personal resolutions are not an effective stand-alone tactic for self-control, some individuals seem capable of using them to exert a remarkable level of control over their behavior. One such individual was Mahatma Gandhi, the famous Indian statesman. Gandhi often used personal resolutions-or "vows"-to commit himself to a range of challenging behaviors, such as extreme diets, sexual abstinence, and fasting.

COVID-19's impact on neglected pharmaceutical staff: wake-up call for needed research.

Discussion of the necessity of the compulsory vaccination of UK patient-facing care workers as an employment conditionality has deflected from the initial and ongoing impact of Coronavirus disease on relatively neglected occupational groups themselves, including community pharmacists. This commentary highlights the relative lack of research investigating the mental health and wellbeing impact of the pandemic on this occupational group in England and urges further study of their needs and experiences to inform evidence-based supportive psychological interventions.

Status of Palliative Oncology Care for Children and Young People in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Perspective Paper on Priorities for New Frontiers.

Purpose: The burden of cancer disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries. Low 5-year survival figures for children with cancer in low-income countries are due to late presentation at diagnosis, treatment abandonment, absence of sophisticated multidisciplinary care, and lack of adequate resources. The reasons for late presentation are partly due to limited awareness of cancer symptoms, high treatment costs, and facility-level barriers to timely access to treatment.

Bereavement care for ethnic minority communities: A systematic review of access to, models of, outcomes from, and satisfaction with, service provision.

Objectives: To review and synthesize the existing evidence on bereavement care, within the United Kingdom (UK), for ethnic minority communities in terms of barriers and facilitators to access; models of care; outcomes from, and satisfaction with, service provision.

Design: A systematic review adopting a framework synthesis approach was conducted. An electronic search of the literature was undertaken in MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Social Work Abstract and CINAHL via EBSCO, Global Health, Cochrane library, the Trip database and ProQuest between 1995 and 2020.

Valuing the Spiritual.

Identifying reforms that minimize US healthcare costs is imperative. This commentary explores one intervention with potential cost-saving implications that has received comparably minimal consideration: spiritual care provision. It highlights the staff and patient costing benefits of spiritual care in addressing spiritual distress and urges practical policy and research initiatives to maximize its impact.

Medical narrative and religious norm driving cut type and medicalization changes in female genital mutilation/cutting in Somaliland.

The authors' aim was to examine if the nature of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in Somaliland is changing and any contributing factors. In this mixed method qualitative study the researchers used 24 focus groups, 20key informant interviews and 28 in-depth interviews with multiple stakeholders. We found a shift from the pharaonic to Sunna cut, an age decrease at which FGM/C is performed and an increase in its medicalization.