The current COVID-19 pandemic confines people to their homes, disrupting the fragile social fabric of deprived neighbourhoods and citizen’s participation options. In deprived neighbourhoods, community engagement is central in building community resilience, an important resource for health and a prerequisite for effective health promotion programmes. It provides access to vulnerable groups and helps understand experiences, assets, needs and problems of citizens. Most importantly, community activities, including social support, primary care or improving urban space, enhance health through empowerment, strengthened social networks, mutual respect and providing a sense of purpose and meaning. In the context of inequalities associated with COVID-19, these aspects are crucial for citizens of deprived neighbourhoods who often feel their needs and priorities are ignored. In this perspectives paper, illustrated by a varied overview of community actions in the UK and The Netherlands, we demonstrate how citizens, communities and organizations may build resilience and community power. Based on in-depth discussion among the authors we distilled six features of community actions: increase in mutual aid and neighbourhood ties, the central role of community-based organizations (CBOs), changing patterns of volunteering, use of digital media and health promotion opportunities. We argue that in order to enable and sustain resilient and confident, ‘disaster-proof’, communities, areas which merit investment include supporting active citizens, new (digital) ways of community engagement, transforming formal organizations, alignment with the (local) context and applying knowledge in the field of health promotion in new ways, focussing on learning and co-creation with citizen initiatives.
Nurse managers play an important role in implementing patient safety practices in hospitals. However, the influence of their professional background on their clinical leadership behaviour remains unclear. Research has demonstrated that concepts of Bourdieu (dispositions of habitus, capital and field) help to describe this influence. It revealed various configurations of dispositions of the habitus in which a caring disposition plays a crucial role. Objectives: We explore how the caring disposition of nurse middle managers' habitus influences their clinical leadership behaviour in patient safety practices.
Purpose of review: To summarize the latest research on the risks and consequences of the burden that may be imposed on informal carers of persons living and dying with advanced heart failure.Recent findings: A systematic search in PubMed over the period 2013–2014 ultimately revealed 24 original articles included in this review. From this research update it can be concluded that the body of knowledge increased with more studies focusing on caregivers of patients with advanced heart failure.Summary: Caregivers are important partners in care and their lives are seriously affected by the condition of advanced heart failure. Studies on the longitudinal effects of the caregiving role on caregiver's quality of life and on caregiver contributions to patient outcomes is still scarce. Focus of current research is moving towards relationship aspects. Dyadic-care typologies and the concept of incongruence within dyads in terms of conflicting perspectives on how to manage the heart failure are new and important concepts presented in studies presented in this review. Heart failure patients and their caregivers still lack sufficient palliative care and communication on prognosis and end-of-life care. More research is needed to determine the optimal time to start palliative interventions to support caregivers of patients with advanced heart failure.
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