Communication is essential to medical care and is key in improving patient outcomes. We aimed to understand clinicians’ emotions when communicating with patients in palliative care (PC) and the evolution of their communication skills.

Between October and November 2021, 231 Swiss PC clinicians participated in an online cross-sectional survey (65% nurses, 35% physicians). Three questions invited participants to reflect on the development of their communication skills and on their emotions when communicating with patients in PC. Answers to these questions were analyzed thematically.

Constantly adapting to complex emotions in communication was the overarching theme. Three main themes further allowed for an understanding of different communication challenges: emotions as a dynamic compass, not always under control, and evolving comfort and competence through personal and professional growth. In evolving comfort and competence, 6 strategies helped clinicians overcome fears and improve their confidence in communication: learning by doing and formal training, integrating life experiences and gaining insight from private life, taking time, collaborating and connecting with peers, acknowledging individuality, and connecting with one’s own and patients’ emotions.

Participants described powerful emotional experiences when communicating with patients in PC, underscoring the emotional labor involved in PC communication. Our study highlights the need to re-conceptualize emotions as a valuable resource rather than a hindrance in clinical practice. The interplay between personal and professional identities in shaping communication skills, emphasizes the importance of emotional competence as a core professional skill. As clinicians often develop these skills individually, our findings suggest a need for earlier integration of emotional competence training in medical education, along with ongoing support through collaboration, and improved allocation of time resources, to enhance clinician well-being and patient care.

Persistent discrimination and identity threats contribute to adverse health outcomes in minoritized groups, mediated by both structural racism and physiological stress responses.

This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of recruiting African American volunteers for a pilot study of race-based stress, the acceptability of a mindfulness intervention designed to reduce racism-induced stress, and to evaluate preliminary associations between race-based stress and clinical, psychosocial, and biological measures.

A convenience sample of African Americans aged 18–50 from New York City’s Tri-state area underwent assessments for racial discrimination using the Everyday Discrimination Scale (EDS) and Race-Based Traumatic Stress Symptom Scale. Mental health was evaluated using validated clinical scales measuring depression, anxiety, stress, resilience, mindfulness, resilience, sleep, interpersonal connection, and coping. Biomarkers were assessed through clinical laboratory tests, allostatic load assessment, and blood gene expression analysis.

Twenty participants (12 females, 8 males) completed assessments after consent. Elevated EDS scores were associated with adverse lipid profiles, including higher cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein (HDL) ratios and lower HDL levels, as well as elevated inflammatory markers (NF-kB activity) and reduced antiviral response (interferon response factor). Those with high EDS reported poorer sleep, increased substance use, and lower resilience. Mindfulness was positively associated with coping and resilience but inversely to sleep disturbance. 90% showed interest in a mindfulness intervention targeting racism-induced stress.

This study demonstrated an association between discrimination and adverse health effects among African Americans. These findings lay the groundwork for further research to explore the efficacy of mindfulness and other interventions on populations experiencing discrimination.

As we face a future of rising global temperatures, and associated extreme weather events, distressing emotional responses are understandable. Climate scientists comprise a unique group, in that they must regularly confront the reality, and consequences, of climate change. In this paper, we explore how the principles of compassion-focused therapy (CFT) might be applied to comprehend the responses of climate scientists to climate change; by doing so, we aim to gain a deeper understanding of these responses in order to consider fruitful avenues for providing support and investigating this area further. We consider how flows of compassion, and blocks to compassion, might play a role in climate scientists’ experiences. Additionally, we conceptualise a role for compassion towards the wider world and humanity more broadly. Finally, by applying the CFT Three Systems model to current understanding of climate scientists’ emotional experiences, we seek to proffer a potential conceptualisation of them.

1. (1) To formulate the emotional experiences of climate scientists from a compassion-focused therapy perspective.

2. (2) To explore how blocks to flows of compassions serve to negatively impact and/or maintain difficult emotional experiences of climate scientists.

3. (3) To consider ways in which the field of psychological therapy can support climate scientists through a difficult emotional journey, and how future research might explore this further.

Despite advances in treatment and outcomes for paediatric heart failure, both physical and psychosocial comorbidities remain notable among this patient population. We aimed to qualitatively describe the psychosocial experiences of adolescent and young adults with heart failure and their caregivers’ perceptions, with specific focus on personal challenges, worries, coping skills, and resilience.

Structured, in-depth interviews were performed with 16 adolescent and young adults with heart failure and 14 of their caregivers. Interviews were recorded and transcribed. Content analysis was performed, and themes were generated. Transcripts were coded by independent reviewers.

Ten (63%) adolescent and young adults with heart failure identified as male and six (37.5%) patients self-identified with a racial or ethnic minority group. Adolescent and young adults with heart failure generally perceived their overall illness experience more positively and less burdensome than their caregivers. Some adolescent and young adults noted specific worries related to surgeries, admissions, major complications, death, and prognostic/treatment uncertainty, while caregivers perceived their adolescent and young adult’s greatest worries to be around major complications and death. Adolescent and young adults and their caregivers were able to define and reflect on adolescent and young adult experiences of resilience, with many adolescent and young adults expressing a sense of optimism and gratitude as it relates to their medical journey.

This study is the first of its kind to qualitatively describe the psychosocial experiences of a racially and socioeconomically diverse sample of adolescent and young adults with heart failure, as well as their caregivers’ perceptions of patient experiences. Findings underscore the importance of identifying distress and fostering resilient processes and outcomes in young people with advanced heart disease.

Coping with a patient’s death is one of the most challenging events faced by healthcare professionals in clinical practice. A broad understanding of the coping strategies used by healthcare professionals is fundamental to the development of effective interventions and the provision of good bereavement care. This review aims to systematically synthesize the coping experience of healthcare professionals in the course of their work when they are confronted with patient deaths.

PubMed, Embase, ScienceDirect, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Scopus, and Wiley online library were searched in April 2023 with no restriction on publication date. A 3-stage thematic synthesis method was applied for data integration and analysis.

Thirty studies involving 545 participants met the inclusion criteria and scored a high level on quality assessment ranging from 9.0 to 10.0. Six themes were identified: emotional coping, cognitive coping, behavioral coping, relational coping, spiritual coping, and occupational coping.

Overall, the coping strategies used by healthcare professionals in response to bereavement were found to be unique and multidimensional. Understanding how healthcare practitioners use emotional, cognitive, behavioral, relational, spiritual, and professional strategies to cope with bereavement will prove extremely beneficial in helping them to manage their grief, and can furthermore promote their professional growth and ensure the provision of excellent bereavement care for patients.

This study aimed to explore relationships between parental stress, coping, and outcomes for parents of infants with CHD, via observational approach reflecting domains of the Parental Stress and Resilience in CHD (PSRCHD) model.

Fifty-five parents of 45 infants with CHD completed questionnaires with measures of parental stress, Problem-Focused Coping (PFC), Emotion-Focused Coping (EFC), Avoidant Coping (AC), mental health (symptoms of anxiety and symptoms of depression), post-traumatic growth (PTG) and quality of life (QoL). Demographic and infant clinical data were obtained.

Parental stress showed significant small to medium positive correlations with MH and PTG, but no significant correlations with QoL. EFC and AC showed significant small to medium positive correlations with MH, and medium negative correlations with parental QoL. EFC and PFC had significant small to medium correlations with PTG. PFC and AC had significant small to medium correlations with infant QoL. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicated that parental symptoms of anxiety, PTG, parental QoL, infant QoL were significantly predicted by models comprising of parental stress, coping styles, and clinical controls (adjusted R2 = 13.0–47.9%, p range < 0.001–.048), with results for parental symptoms of depression falling marginally above significance (adjusted R2 = 12.3%, p = .056).

Parental stress, coping styles, and length of hospital stay are related to psychological outcomes in parents of infants with CHD. Future research may use the PSRCHD framework to assess mechanisms underlying CHD parents’ stress and coping experiences and investigate longitudinal relationships between parental factors and parent and child outcomes.

Research on suicide rarely focuses on protective factors. The goal of this systematic review was to assess the evidence of the associations between protective factors and reduced suicidality among older adults.

First, a scoping review was conducted to identify pertinent terms that refer to various protective factors against suicidality. A systematic review, following the PRISMA guidelines, was then conducted on a selection of 15 protective factors (e.g., perceived control, well-being and quality of life, life satisfaction, purpose-in-life, resilience, coping, religiosity, hope, self-regulation, sense of belonging, mattering, positive relationship, social support, social connectedness, and social participation), with separate searches performed on each factor in five databases. Empirical studies were eligible if participants were adults aged 60 years and over, and if the studies reported predictive statistical analysis.

A total of 70 studies were retained for the review. Suicidal ideation was the main outcome measure (91%). Significant associations were consistently observed between all protective factors and reduced suicidal ideations or behaviors, particularly for purpose-in-life, resilience, and positive relationships, indicating that these are solid components for suicide prevention. Using scales, instead of a single item, to measure protective factors (e.g. life satisfaction) was more efficient to capture the associations. On the other hand, results were similar whether studies used subjective (e.g., sense of belonging) or objective (e.g., social connectedness) measures.

Protective factors were inversely associated with suicidal ideation. Improving protective factors is essential for the development of late-life suicide prevention and interventions, instead of merely focusing on risk factors.