Understanding Occupations of Terminally Ill Chinese Adults and Their Caregivers: A Scoping Review.

This scoping review explored the occupations of terminally ill Chinese adults and their caregivers. Seven databases were searched for peer-reviewed journal articles published in English or Chinese before June 2020. Of the 16 studies that met the selection criteria, only one directly used the term "occupations" while the other 15 studies contained descriptions of occupations. Eight themes were extracted and compared with existing literature. The top two reported themes were occupations surrounding life roles and tasks and those surrounding food and eating. More study is required about the occupational engagement of this client group.

The Relationship Between Present-Centered Awareness and Attention, Burnout, and Compassion Fatigue in Oncology Health Professionals.

OBJECTIVES: Oncology health professionals experience high levels of burnout and compassion fatigue, affecting their health and the care they provide. This study aimed to establish whether present-centered awareness and attention (a component of mindfulness) is uniquely associated with burnout and compassion fatigue in oncology professionals. METHODS: An international sample of oncology professionals (n = 118) completed an online questionnaire with validated measures of present-centered awareness and attention, empathy, compassion fatigue, and burnout. Hierarchical multiple regressions were used to model relations among the independent variable (present-centered awareness and attention) and the criterion variables of burnout (disengagement, exhaustion) and compassion fatigue (compassion satisfaction, compassion burnout, secondary traumatic stress) after statistically controlling for empathy, age, gender, years of experience, and patient contact hours. RESULTS: Mean hours of patient contact per week was 23.52 (SD = 13.62), with 26 (22.03%) reporting 40 h or more. Higher hours of patient contact per week were positively associated with secondary traumatic stress. Present-centered awareness and attention was associated with lower disengagement, lower emotional exhaustion, higher compassion satisfaction, lower secondary traumatic stress, and lower compassion burnout. In each model, present-centered awareness accounted for unique variance after controlling for age, gender, years of experience, patient contact hours per week, and empathy scores. The amount of unique variance accounted for by present-centered awareness ranged from 4 to 10%. CONCLUSIONS: Oncology professionals reporting higher levels of present-centered awareness and attention reported higher compassion satisfaction and lower secondary traumatic stress, compassion burnout, exhaustion, and disengagement. Promoting present-centered awareness may be a mechanism that contributes to less burnout in oncology professionals.

Toward embedding wellness approaches to health and disability in the policies and practices of allied health providers.

Wellness approaches, based on the social model of disability, are increasingly preferred throughout the health and disability service sectors. Despite this preference, there is a clear misalignment between policy and practice, and many allied health services continue to operate according to medical models of illness. To present an argument toward the incorporation of wellness approaches to health and disability in the policies and practices of allied health providers in Australia, this review is organized into four sections. First, the history and antecedents of wellness approaches, including the social model of disability, and relationships between them, are presented and discussed. Second, the current theoretical, empirical, social, and political demands for the implementation of wellness approaches are examined, with a particular emphasis on allied health settings. Next, the factors that facilitate and impede the uptake and implementation of wellness approaches in allied health settings are examined. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for allied health practice, education, and research.