A compassionate university for serious illness, death, and bereavement: Qualitative study of student and staff experiences and support needs.

Serious illness, death, and bereavement are common experiences within the work and study context. This study aims to explore the experiences and support needs of university students and staff confronted with serious illness, death, and bereavement. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with 21 students and 26 staff. A thematic analysis resulted in three overarching themes: the university as a high-pressure environment; navigating the complex university information and support system; and disenfranchized grief. Four themes were identified in terms of what participants needed from the university: clear processes and procedures; flexibility in policy application; proactive support and recognition; and activities to enhance awareness and interpersonal communication skills. Findings from this study could enable higher education institutions to become more compassionate schools and workplaces.

Researching Compassionate Communities: Identifying theoretical frameworks to evaluate the complex processes behind public health palliative care initiatives.

BACKGROUND: Compassionate Communities have been put forward as a new model for community-based palliative care to positively impact the health and wellbeing of those experiencing challenges of serious illness, death, dying, and loss. Despite the growing international movement to develop these public health initiatives to end-of-life care, only a handful of initiatives have undergone some form of evaluation. AIM: To provide guidance on designing evaluation research by identifying theoretical frameworks to understand the development, implementation, and underlying mechanisms of Compassionate Communities. METHODS: To identify suitable theoretical frameworks for the study of Compassionate Communities, we applied two steps. The first step examined the characteristics of Compassionate Communities and translated them into assessment criteria for the selection of theoretical frameworks. The second step consisted of applying the identified assessment criteria to a list of widely used and highly cited theoretical frameworks. RESULTS: Three well-established theoretical frameworks were identified as being most suitable to study the development, implementation, and underlying mechanisms of Compassionate Communities: The Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR), the integrated-Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services framework (i-PARIHS), and the Extended Normalization Process Theory (ENPT). CONCLUSIONS: The article supports and encourages the use of theoretical frameworks to evaluate the complex processes behind public health palliative care initiatives. The complementary use of two determinant frameworks and an implementation theory provides theoretical grounding to gain rich insights into the emergent and shifting interplays between agency, social processes, and contextual factors that shape the development and implementation of Compassionate Communities.

Gender differences in mental health problems among adolescents and the role of social support: results from the Belgian health interview surveys 2008 and 2013.

BACKGROUND: To investigate how social support relates to mental health problems for Belgian late adolescents and young adults 15-25 years of age. Additionally, we examine changes in mental health problems between 2008 and 2013 and investigate gender differences. METHODS: Multivariate analysis of variance was used to investigate (1) psychological distress, (2) anxiety and (3) depression among 713 boys and 720 girls taken from two successive waves (2008 and 2013) of a representative sample of the Belgian population (Belgian Health Interview survey). Psychological distress was measured by the General Health Questionnaire, anxiety and depression by the Symptom Check-List-90-Revised. RESULTS: Gender differences were found for psychological distress, anxiety and depression with girls reporting significantly higher scores than boys. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed that adolescents who are dissatisfied with their social contacts and experience poor social support reported more psychological distress, anxiety and depression. In addition, young adult boys (20-25 years of age) were more likely to experience psychological distress when compared to late adolescent boys (15-19 years of age). Finally, the prevalence of anxiety and depression increased substantially between 2008 and 2013 for girls and to a lesser extent for boys. CONCLUSIONS: Especially girls and young people with poor social support experience mental health problems more frequently than boys and those with strong social support. Improving social support among young people may serve as a protective buffer to mental health problems.

Conflict thinking: Exploring the social basis of perceiving the world through the lens of social conflict.

Both human rights organisations and studies in political communication have noticed an increasing use of conflict frames in contemporary politics within Western societies. As such frames are only interesting for political actors if they find resonance among a substantial share of the population, these observations raise the question as to who supports conflict thinking and why? Whereas public opinion research has studied many attitudes that are based on conflict thinking (e.g., ethnic prejudice, populism, feelings of collective deprivation, and welfare chauvinism), this paper addresses the more fundamental question as to whether it is possible to measure people's general tendency to perceive the world through the lens of social conflict. Data from the European Quality of Life Survey (34,655 respondents; 34 countries) reveal strong correlations between the perceptions of the amount of tension between seven pairs of groups. These correlations are combined into a single scale reflecting the amount of perceived social conflict in society. Subsequent multilevel analyses support the claim that conflict thinking is embedded in different feelings of vulnerability. In the conclusion, we elaborate on the implications of our findings.

I Ain't Gonna Make It. Comparing Job Demands-Resources and Attrition Intention Between Senior Teachers and Senior Employees of Six Other Occupational Categories in Flanders.

Teachers are often thought to retire early and have more stress and burnout than other human service professionals. In this article, we investigate attrition intention amongst senior teachers and senior employees of six other blue- and white-collar occupational categories using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. We followed a two-step approach. First, analysis of variance and logistic regression analysis was used to assess differences in the level of job demands, resources, and attrition intention between occupations for male and female employees separately. Subsequently, multiple group path analysis was used to assess the invariance of the JD-R model across occupational groups and genders. We used representative data gathered in Flanders among 6,810 senior employees (45 years or older). Results indicate that there are differences in the determinants of attrition intention between men and women. The differences in attrition intention are minimal between occupations once controlled for job demands and resources. In addition, the JD-R model is largely invariant across white-collar occupations and gender. We provide support for both the energetic and motivational process of the JD-R model.

Researching Compassionate Communities From an Interdisciplinary Perspective: The Case of the Compassionate Communities Center of Expertise.

Compassionate Communities are places and environments in which people, networks, and institutions actively work together and are empowered to improve the circumstances, health, and well-being of those facing serious illness, death, dying, and loss. The study of their development, implementation, and evaluation requires an interdisciplinary research approach that has hitherto been lacking. In 2020, 8 research groups from 4 faculties at Vrije Universiteit Brussel united in the interdisciplinary Compassionate Communities Center of Expertise (COCO) to investigate Compassionate Communities. This article describes the first results of COCO: (a) an interdisciplinary mode of collaboration, (b) a shared conceptual understanding and definition of Compassionate Communities, and (c) a shared research agenda on Compassionate Communities.

To stop or not to stop: an empirical assessment of the determinants of early retirement among active and retired senior teachers.

While the official retirement age for most Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is 65 years, the average employee in the majority of OECD countries retires considerably earlier. With the coming retirement of the baby boom generation, increasing life expectancy, and budget restrictions due to the financial crisis, most countries want to motivate employees to work longer. For these reasons, studying early retirement is highly relevant. In this article, we examine the determinants of early retirement among working and retired senior teachers between 45 and 65 years old in Flanders, Belgium. Although a widespread early exit culture exists among teachers and teacher shortages are expected in several countries, little attention has been given to the specific determinants of early retirement among teachers. Using multivariate linear regression analysis, we study the preferred retirement age of working teachers (n = 1,878) and the actual retirement age of retired teachers (n = 1,246). Financial factors, feelings of emotional exhaustion, and dissatisfaction with nonteaching-related workload (such as meetings and paperwork) have an important influence on the retirement decision. Results show that the majority of teachers make use of early exit schemes. This illustrates the existence of a widespread early exit culture among senior teachers in Flanders.