A Critical Review of the Forms and Value of Religious Coping Among Informal Caregivers

A review of the literature revealed high rates of religiousness and religious coping among informal caregivers (i.e., unpaid family and friends) and some associations with better mental and spiritual health and caregiving experience. However, the information necessary to practically and empirically apply this knowledge to improve the lives of caregivers was noticeably absent. To this end five key issues were identified: (a) Measurement, (b) Process, (c) Effectiveness, (d) Moderators, and (e) Mediators. A greater understanding of the specific types of religious coping strategies used, how their use changes over time, for whom and what outcomes they are most effective, and what influences and explains their effectiveness, will better equip healthcare workers to promote the functioning and well being of caregivers.     

The Case of Guest Workers: Exploitation,Citizenship and Economic Rights

Working from a ``capitalist' theory of exploitation, based on a neo-classical account of economic value, I argue that guest workers are exploited. It may be objected, however, that since they are not citizens, any inequality that stems from their status as non-citizens is morally unobjectionable. Although host countries are under no moral obligation to admit guest workers as citizens, thereare independent reasons that call for the extension of economicrights – the freedom of occupation in particular – to guestworkers. Since the cause of unequal exchange rests in the factthat guest workers are deprived of these rights, rather than in their exclusion from citizenship per se, I concludethat they are exploited even if their exclusion from citizenshipmay be justified.     

2404例农民工急诊医疗现状调查与对策研究

为调查进城农民工急诊医疗现状,对2404例急诊住院治疗的农民工进行项目的回顾性调查研究。其中青壮年占79．1％,低学历占86．5％,创伤占83．7％,自费占76．9％;同时,统计显示,医疗欠费逐年增高。目前急诊医疗问题比较复杂,医疗保障制度不完善,医疗卫生资源分配不公平。为了改变这种局面,应当完善农民工的医疗保障机制,从制度上解决农民工急诊医疗问题。     

Challenges of patient‐led mental health services to psychoanalytic clinicians

This paper considers implications to psychoanalytic psychotherapy of the British Government's decision to implement a patient choice agenda for state‐funded mental health services in England and Wales. It places the patient choice agenda in the context of consumerist society and argues that the complex nature of psychoanalytic psychotherapy leaves it more vulnerable than other psychological therapy modalities to compete in the current reality of ‘consumer’‐led public mental health, which, in turn reflects a profoundly changed social context from that to which psychoanalysis traces its roots. Unless psychoanalytic clinicians recognize and find ways to adjust to this context they will jeopardize the survival of psychoanalytic psychotherapy in an increasingly market‐orientated model of mental healthcare provision in the public sector, eager to promote more ‘consumer friendly’ psychological therapy models.     

医者叙事素养量表的编制及信度效度检验

医者叙事素养将成为评价医疗人才实力的重要指标。然而,目前国内仍缺少以中国叙事医学理论与实践为基础的相关量表。研究以全国三十几家叙事医学基地的实践经验为基础制定量表,展开条目和探索性因子分析、内部一致性检验和验证性因子分析。最终形成的中国医者叙事素养量表由两个分量表组成,其中叙事认知能力量表分为生命健康叙事意识和职业叙事思维2个维度;叙事行为能力量表分为生命健康、家庭连接、职业发展、同行交流、医患互动5个维度,均具良好信效度,可为中国叙事医学研究、教育和实践提供科学有效的评估工具。

     

Religious support and psychosocial well-being among a religious Jewish population

The three subscales of the Religious Support Scale assess perceived support from a person’s religious community, religious leaders, and God. This three-factor structure was replicated in the current study with a sample of 277 religious Jewish persons residing in Israel. Hierarchical canonical analysis showed that, even after controlling for general social support, Religious Leader and God Support were related to lower emotional distress, Religious Leader and Religious Community Support contributed to a higher level of life satisfaction, and Religious Community and God Support contributed to the prediction of perceived health. Findings are discussed in terms of religious support’s generalizability as a psychosocial resource for persons of various faiths.     

Social network as a moderator in the relation between trauma exposure and trauma reaction: a survey among UN soldiers and relief workers

Social network as a moderator between trauma exposure and post-trauma symptomatology was studied. Two samples--relief workers and UN soldiers--were assessed on trauma exposure, social network and three dependent measures related to post-trauma reactions. Regression analysis and interaction plots were used to determine the presence of interaction effects between trauma exposure and social network. All four network variables moderated the relationship between trauma exposure and post-trauma reactions among relief workers, while among UN soldiers only two such buffer effects were found. Furthermore, among UN soldiers one of these interaction effects was reversed, indicating social support to be important for those low on trauma exposure, while among relief workers support was important in the high-exposure condition. The results indicate a difference with respect to the importance of social network as a moderator between groups exposed to different kinds of war trauma. Differences in motivational systems may also exist. However, further research will have to establish this.     

Trading jobs for health: Ionizing radiation,occupational ethics,and the welfare argument

Blue-collar workers throughout the world generally face higher levels of pollution than the public and are unable to control many health risks that employers impose on them. Economists tend to justify these risky workplaces on the grounds of the compensating wage differential (CWD). The CWD, or hazard-pay premium, is the alleged increment in wages, all things being equal, that workers in hazardous environments receive. According to this theory, employees trade safety for money on the job market, even though they realize some of them will bear the health consequences of their employment in a risky occupational environment. To determine whether the CWD or hazard-pay premium succeeds in justifying alleged environmental injustices in the workplace, this essay (1) surveys the general theory behind the “compensating wage differential”; (2) presents and evaluates the “welfare argument” for the CWD; (3) offers several reasons for rejecting the CWD, as a proposed rationale for allowing apparent environmental injustice in the workplace; and (4) applies the welfare argument to an empirical case, that of US nuclear workers. The essay concludes that this argument fails to provide a justification for the apparent environmental injustice faced by the 600,000 US workers who have labored in government nuclear-weapons plants and laboratories. Shrader-Frechette is O’Neill Professor of Philosophy and Concurrent Professor of Biological Sciences. She teaches ethics, philosophy of science, quantitative risk assessment, and environmental science. The latest of her 280 articles and 14 books is her 2002 volume from Oxford University Press, Environmental Justice: Creating Equality, Reclaiming Democracy. Shrader-Frechette is grateful to the National Science Foundation, Ethics and Values Program, for research support for this article through grant SES-98-10611. All opinions are those of the author, not the NSF.     

A Moral Framework for Multicultural Education in Healthcare

The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, I begin by reviewing several of themajor points of emphasis among health educatorsas they begin to incorporate multiculturalissues into healthcare education. I thenconsider the role of moral relativism, which iscurrently being endorsed by some healtheducators, as the foundation for resolvingcross-cultural conflicts in healthcare. Iargue that moral relativism is ultimatelyinconsistent with the stated goals inmulticultural curricular proposals and fails toprovide an effective framework for consideringmoral conflicts in cross-cultural settings. Instead, I propose that those methods seekingto establish a common morality, built uponmutually shared values, offer the mostpromising means of resolving cross-culturalconflicts. This leads to my second goal, tocompare recent work in moral pragmatism withwhat is now widely known in bioethics as moral``principlism.' I argue that while proponentsof principlism and pragmatism each seek toestablish a common foundation for moraldeliberation, they fail to appreciatesignificant similarities between theirrespective approaches. Instead of offeringtwo completely unique and independent methodsof moral deliberation, I suggest thatprinciplism and pragmatism embrace commonthemes that point us in a positive direction,providing an effective framework useful forconsidering cross-cultural conflicts inhealthcare.     

“Oilfield Trash or Oilfield Treasure? A Pastoral Response to Living in the Extraction Economy of the Permian Basin” by Rev. Dr. Dawn Darwin Weaks

The climate crisis is witnessed on a global scale and it is also experienced in the local communities that work in extractive industries. In this article, a pastor in the Permian Basin explores the term “oilfield trash” as it is used for oilfield workers in the Permian Basin, connecting the epithet with the negative conditions for quality of life there, and comparing it to treatment of oilfield workers in Norway. Treatment of workers is identified as essential to esteem of communities and land. Renaming workers “treasure” in keeping with the tradition of Isaiah 62:4 is identified as part of the healing needed for extractive communities to transition away from fossil fuels. Four avenues of congregational ministry within mining economies are identified, with the way of “partnership” with the workers in the industry recommended as offering hope for churches to help relieve the climate crisis.