preservation of the funerary traditions of a religious minority: Jewish cemeteries in Europe

Este artículo ofrece un compendio de la evolución de los cementerios judíos en Europa desde la antigüedad hasta nuestros días. No está centrado en los sepulcros sino en su posicionamiento, distribución y diseño posterior. Los cementerios judíos reflejan una situación en constante cambio de una minoría religiosa y social dentro de un entorno a veces tolerante, pero, en la mayor parte de los casos, intolerante. Es una historia de separación e integración, de conservar la tradición o de asimilación. A lo largo de más de dos milenios se ha mantenido el núcleo de creencias judías sobre la vida después de la muerte y cómo afrontar la muerte y el entierro. Su conservación es una tarea gigantesca, ya que estas ‘Casas de la Vida’ son el testimonio de esta minoría de europeos tempranos que conectaron el continente tras el colapso de la civilización de la antigüedad. This article gives a brief outline of the development of Jewish cemeteries in Europe since antiquity up to today. It focuses less on gravestones than on the positioning, layout and later design of these burial places. Jewish cemeteries reflect the ever changing situation of a religious and social minority within a sometimes tolerant, but mostly intolerant environment. It’s a history of separation and integration, of retaining tradition or assimilation. O two millennia a core of Jewish belief in afterlife and coping with death and burial was kept. Their upkeep is a gigantic task, as these ‘Houses of Life’ are a testimony to a minority of early Europeans, who connected the continent following the collapse of the civilisation of antiquity.

Exploring the Use of Virtual Funerals during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

The COVID-19 pandemic and physical distancing limitations have had a profound impact on funeral practices and associated grieving processes. The purpose of the present scoping review is to summarize the existing literature on the emerging use of virtual funerals. Five medical databases, five social science databases, and five grey literature databases were searched, identifying 1,351 titles and abstracts, of which 62 met inclusion criteria. Four themes, each with various subthemes emerged: (a) Impact of virtual funerals on coping with death; (b) Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the funeral industry; (c) Benefits and disadvantages of virtual funerals; and (d) Future implications for health and social work practitioners. Virtual funerals are an evolving resource for individuals, families, and communities to mourn in response to the interruptions to traditional grieving practices due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Personal and Emotional Factors of Nursing Professionals Related to Coping with End-of-Life Care: A Cross-Sectional Study

The death of a patient can be a traumatic event, causing emotional and psychological distress in professional nurses and potentially hampering the quality of their care. Optimal self-perceived coping with death involves valuing these difficult situations as challenges and actively coping with work-related stress during the care of the dying patient. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess Spanish nurses’ self-perceived competence with patient death and investigate its relationship with their personality traits, anxiety and fear of death. A cross-sectional study based on a web-based survey was conducted. A sample of 534 Spanish nurses provided socio-demographic information and answered validated questionnaires. Most participants perceived their coping with death as optimal. Men and nurses older than 31 years coped better with death. Professionals with an optimal self-perception showed significantly lower scores on all personality dimensions evaluated, while a higher level of the anxiety trait predicted worse coping. Although with medium explanatory power, psychoticism, anxiety, and fear of death were the main predictors of the development of optimal coping with death among Spanish nurses. These characteristics together with information from the work environment and evidence-based practice could help to develop better routines and contexts of care for nurses working in end-of-life care.

Attitudes of nursing degree students towards end of life processes. A cultural approach (Spain-Senegal)

Introduction The concept of death is abstract, complex and has a number of meanings. Thus, its understanding and the approach taken to it depend, to a large extent, on aspects such as age, culture, training and religion. Nursing students have regular contact with the process of death and so it is of great interest to understand the attitudes they have towards it. As we live in a plural society it is even more interesting to not only understand the attitudes of Spanish students but, also, those of students coming from other countries. In the present article, we seek to identify and compare the attitudes held by nursing degree students at Hekima-Santé University (Senegal) and the University of Huelva (Spain) about end of life processes. The study identifies elements that condition attitudes and coping with death, whilst considering curricular differences with regards to specific end of life training. Method A descriptive, cross-sectional and multi-center study was conducted. The overall sample (N = 142) was divided into groups: Hekima-Santé University (Dakar, Senegal) and the University of Huelva (Huelva, Spain). The measurement instruments used were an ad-hoc questionnaire and Bugen´s Coping with Death Scale. Results Statistically significant differences (p = 0.005, 95%CI) were found in relation to overall Bugen Scale scores. We can confirm that specialized end of life training (University of Huelva, Spain) did not lead to better coping when compared with a population whose academic curriculum did not provide specific training and who engaged in more religious practices (Hekima-Santé University, Senegal). Conclusions In cultures where religion not only influences the spiritual dimension of the individual, but acts in the ethical and moral system and consequently in the economic, educational and family sphere, the accompaniment at the end of life transcends the formative plane. Considering the plural society in which we live, the training that integrates the Degree in Nursing with regard to the care of the final process, must be multidimensional in which spirituality and faith are integrated, working emotional and attentional skills, as well as cultural competence strategies in this process.

Effectiveness of Lecture-Simulation-Combined Palliative Care Course to Improve Nursing Students' Knowledge, Attitude and Coping

Palliative care education for undergraduate nursing students varies in hours, methods, and contents worldwide. This study aimed to examine the nursing students' changes in palliative care knowledge, attitude, and coping with death after 18 hours of lecture-simulation-combined palliative care course. The study adopted a quasi-experiment method by one-group pre-posttest design. The palliative care course was composed of 2-hour of lecture, 10-hour of lecture-simulation-combined terminal symptoms learning, and 6-hour of simulation scenario practice. Students' knowledge was measured with Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing, students' attitude was measured with Frommelt Attitude towards Care of the Dying, and students' coping with death was measured with Coping with Death Scale before and after the palliative care course. There were 52 nursing undergraduate students participated in this study. The higher mean score of Palliative Care Quiz for Nursing, Frommelt Attitude towards Care of the Dying, and Coping with Death Scale gained after the course indicated students' improved knowledge, attitude, and coping (P<0.05). Results from multiple regression analysis showed that knowledge and attitude had statistically significant impacts on students' coping with death (P<0.05). The palliative care course combining lectures with simulation-based learning could improve nursing students' palliative care knowledge, attitude, and coping strategies. Nursing educators can improve nursing students' coping with death by enriching their knowledge and improving their attitude.

Gaming and Grieving: Digital Games as Means of Confronting and Coping with Death

This paper explores structural similarities between playing a digital game and experiencing grief. The digital game Mandagon evokes a sense of loss through its game environment of grey mountainous landscapes, broken wooden scaffolds, and Tibetan temples and prayer flags in states of disrepair. It elicits feelings of disorientation and dependency as players repeatedly fall from scaffolds but ascend by using lifts or finding air bubble streams underwater. It encompasses terrestrial, corporeal, and cosmic crossings as players move through air, land, and water, as they neither inhabit nor encounter a human body, and they cross various cosmic thresholds through the course of the game. For players struggling with grief, it validates and normalizes feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and vulnerability in the wake of death and loss.