Progress in Palliative Care, 20:2, 63-65, DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1179/0969926012Z.00000000028
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                Introduction Community health workers (CHWs) are increasingly being tasked to prevent and manage cardiovascular disease (CVD) and its risk factors in underserved populations in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs); however, little is known about the required training necessary for them to ...accomplish their role. This review aimed to evaluate the training of CHWs for the prevention and management of CVD and its risk factors in LMICs.
Methods A search strategy was developed in line with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines, and five electronic databases (Medline, Global Health, ERIC, EMBASE and CINAHL) were searched to identify peer-reviewed studies published until December 2016 on the training of CHWs for prevention or control of CVD and its risk factors in LMICs. Study characteristics were extracted using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and quality assessed using Effective Public Health Practice Project’s Quality Assessment Tool. The search, data extraction and quality assessment were performed independently by two researchers.
Results The search generated 928 articles of which 8 were included in the review. One study was a randomised controlled trial, while the remaining were before–after intervention studies. The training methods included classroom lectures, interactive lessons, e-learning and online support and group discussions or a mix of two or more. All the studies showed improved knowledge level post-training, and two studies demonstrated knowledge retention 6 months after the intervention.
Conclusion The results of the eight included studies suggest that CHWs can be trained effectively for CVD prevention and management. However, the effectiveness of CHW trainings would likely vary depending on context given the differences between studies (eg, CHW demographics, settings and training programmes) and the weak quality of six of the eight studies. Well-conducted mixed-methods studies are needed to provide reliable evidence about the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of training programmes for CHWs.
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                                                                Journal of Palliative Medicine Volume 21, Number 10, 2018
DOI: 10.1089/jpm.2018.0248ad
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies ISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                Spiritual care has formed an integral part of palliative care since its inception. People with advanced illnesses, however, frequently report that their spiritual needs are not attended to by their medical care team. The present study examines and describes the impact of a spiritual care training pr...ogram on practice and cultural change in our Canadian hospice.
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                                                                HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological StudiesISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422P
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                Nurses' perceptions about providing spiritual care
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                Our spiritual health profoundly impacts our physical health, well-being, and quality of life. Just as medical professionals care for our bodies and minds, spiritual care practitioners care for our spirits. The increasing need for spiritual care makes these practitioners even more crucial. However, m...any of us have limited access to quality, professional spiritual care. At times of struggle, this lack of spiritual care can have a negative impact on our health and well-being.Investigators and researchers are creating a growing body of evidence for the innumerable benefits of professional spiritual care, yet many people still do not have a lot of accurate information about these practitioners. To create this publication, the six largest healthcare chaplaincy organizations in North America collaborated to share the facts about spiritual care and practitioners’ roles, training, and standards.By providing evidence and dispelling myths, the thousands of spiritual care practitioners represented by these organizations hope to increase access to spiritual care for the benefit of all. 
accessed July 2020
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                                                                This is the ninth paper in our series, “Community Health Workers at the Dawn of a New Era”. Community health workers (CHWs) are in an intermediary position between the health system and the community. While this position provides CHWs with a good platform to improve community health, a major cha...llenge in large-scale CHW programmes is the need for CHWs to establish and maintain benefcial relationships with both sets of actors, who may have diferent expectations and needs. This paper focuses on the quality of CHW relationships with actors at the local level of the national health system and with communities.
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                                                                Guidelines for treatment of drug-susceptible tuberculosisand patient care
2017 Update
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                The EAPC White Paper addresses the issue of spiritual care education for all palliative care
professionals. It is to guide health care professionals involved in teaching or training of palliative care and spiritual care; stakeholders, leaders and decision makers responsible for training and educati...on; as well as national and local curricula development groups.
The EAPC white paper points out the importance of spiritual care as an integral part of palliative care and suggests incorporating it accordingly into educational activities and training models in palliative care. The revised spiritual care education competencies for all palliative care providers are accompanied by the best practice models and research evidence, at the same time being sensitive towards different develop-ment stages of the palliative care services across the European region.
Conclusions: Better education can help the healthcare practitioner to avoid being distracted by their own fears, prejudices, and restraints and attend to the patient and his/her family. This EAPC white paper encourages and facilitates high quality, multi-disciplinary, academically and financially accessible spiritual care education to all
palliative care staff.
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                                                                Time for recognition of lay counsellors
Accessed November 2017
                                                            
                         
                     
                                                        
                        
                        
                            
                            
                                                                We will soon be piloting a project titled “Integrating Spirituality into Patient Care” that will form “spiritual care teams” to assess and address patients’ spiritual needs in physician  outpatient  practices  within  Adventist  Health  System,  the  largest  Protestant healthcare  system ... in  the  United  States.This  paper  describes  the  goals,  the  rationale,  and the  structure  of  the  spiritual  care  teams  that  will  soon  be  implemented,  and  discusses  the barriers  to  providing  spiritual  care  that  health  professionals  are  likely  to  encounter.Spiritual care teams may operate in an outpatient or an inpatient setting, and their purpose is  to  provide  health  professionals  with  resources  necessary  to  practice  whole  person healthcare that includes spiritual care.We believe that this project will serve as a model forfaith-based  health  systems  seeking  to  visibly  demonstrate  their  mission  in  a  way  that makes them unique and expresses their values.Not only does this model have the potential to  be  cost-effective,  but  also  the  capacity  to  increase  the  quality  of  patient  care  and  the satisfaction that  health  professionals  derive  from  providing  care.If  successful,  this  model could  spread  beyond  faith-based  systems  to  secular  systems  as  well  both  in the  U.S. and worldwide.
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                                                                These guidelines group all recommendations on TB care and support in one document and are complemented by an operational handbook.  The guidelines are to be used primarily by national TB programmes, or their equivalents in Ministries of Health, stakeholders and technical organizations working on... TB care in the public and private sectors and in the community.
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                                                                The International Council of Nurses (ICN) Code of Ethics ([1], p. 5) specifies the nurse’s role of promoting “an environment in which the human rights, values, customs and spiritual beliefs of the individual, family and community are respected”. The Malta Code of Ethics supports this for nurse...s and  midwives  [2],  stating  that  the  nurse  is  to  “recognize  and  respect  the  uniqueness  of  every patient/client’s biological, psychological, social and spiritual status and needs”. Since patients are attended by different members of the multi-disciplinary team, these codes of ethics also address the holistic care of health care professionals that contribute towards patients’ safety. Examples of some heroes  in  nursing  are  given,  whereby,  their being in  care  generated  signs  of  spirituality  in  their attempts to address patients’ needs, while their caring attitude instilled hope and healing.
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