The EAPE Section Needs and Wishes of Young and Elderly People hereby announces its new research project on February 14th 2024 and invites EAPE members to discuss and participate.
For scientific and statistical reasons, we are focusing on a sample/model that explores the understanding of spirituality among young patients with chronic kidney disease, dialysis and transplantation and their pediatric nephrologists.
Methods used include narratives from patients and their physicians and their responses to age-appropriate questionnaires (MiniQs) on spirituality.
In addition, we will test the hypothesis that philosophy and complex systems thinking can illuminate our findings to the extent that the theoretical conclusions can be translated into practice.
In conclusion, the EAPE section Needs and Wishes of Young and Old is launching a multi-center survey in Europe and the US to investigate the impact of spirituality on children with CKD, dialysis and transplantation and their nephrologists.
This EAPE survey is officially supported by the European Society of Pediatric Nephrology (ESPN). Therefore, Jochen Ehrich and his team will invite more than 50 pediatric nephrologists from 48 European countries to participate. After our video lectures, the video presentations will be available on Youtube for all interested colleagues.
Last but not least, I would like to emphasize that the range of topics selected during my three years of chairing the section is much broader than the needs and diseases of patients with CKD, but this will be the content of our upcoming video lectures in 2024.
Jochen Ehrich - - Children's Hospital of Hannover Medical School, hannover, Germany
The introductory lecture is given by the President of EAPE Professor Sir Leslie Ebdon
Jochen Ehrich's Lecture
explains the following:
1. The language and terminology of the various concepts of needs and wishes.
2. The role of philosophy and complex systems thinking in medicine.
3. The instructions for our research project.
4. The opportunities and limitations of this research.
5. The need for a 3rd enlightenment in Europe.
Robert Woroniecki’s Lecture
will deal with the following topics:
Human spirit has been defined in different disciplines by many various ways. Robert defines spirituality as a sense of purpose in life and as our relationships with all living creatures or “Higher Power” on planet Earth. The World Health Organization (WHO) and Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations have identified spirituality as an important aspect of healthcare. Research over the last several decades demonstrates an association between spirituality and clinical outcomes, coping, and quality of life in different adult chronic diseases.
However, fewer studies have examined human spirit and spirituality in pediatrics and all its subspecialties and diseases to assess its specific role in children’s health. Although there are validated scales to measure hope in children based on the premise that children are goal oriented and that their goal-related thoughts can be understood, they were described in limited samples in healthy children. For example, spirituality in children with chronic kidney disease remains mostly unexamined.
Robert seeks to summarize current literature examining the role of spirituality in pediatrics and to identify gaps in this knowledge. It is investigating how the human spirit can be measured so that the results of the EAPE study on the needs and wishes of young patients with chronic kidney disease can be incorporated into the assessment of quality of life.