This innovative book draws together a wide range of multidisciplinary research to illuminate how the helping professions can provide person-centred spiritual care to their patients in a health emergency, making use of new digital technologies alongside more established modes of care.

Drawing on primary research undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic, and including vignettes from practitioners around the world, this book explores:

• the need for culturally competent spiritual care
• different perspectives on spirituality from philosophy and religion, including posthumanist theories
• the necessity for culturally competent and compassionate spiritual care in health settings, during health disasters and emergencies, including the COVID-19 pandemic
• the development of a strategy for delivering culturally competent spiritual care in circumstances of major health disasters and the training of staff
• ethics and moral injury, and equality diversity and inclusion in the provision of spiritual care
• opinions and lived experiences from health, social, and pastoral care professionals about spiritual care in health settings

• the use of new digital and artificially intelligent technologies to provide spiritual care during the COVID-19 pandemic and their potential use in upcoming health disasters Culturally Competent Spiritual Care during Health Disasters and Emergencies is an important contribution to the literatures on spiritual care, disaster healthcare, culturally competent healthcare, and technology in healthcare. It is ideal for researchers and practitioners within health and social care, and pastoral care.

  Autorentext

  Irena Papadopoulos is Professor Emeritus at Middlesex University, London, where she established and headed the Research Centre for Transcultural Studies in Health in 1995. Dr Papadopoulos is the former Chair of the Research Team of the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Allied Health Professions and of the Ethics Committee. She co-founded ETNA (European Transcultural Nurses Association) and IENE (Intercultural Education for Nurses in Europe) programmes. She led the development of Papadopoulos, Tilki and Taylor (PTT) model for cultural competence (1998). During 2017-2021, she developed the guidelines for the creation of the first culturally competent socially assistive robot (The CARESSES project). She received numerous awards and authored a number of books and hundreds of articles.

Runa Lazzarino is a socio-cultural anthropologist working at the intersection of migration, health, and advanced technologies in healthcare. Currently, she is a Research Fellow at Middlesex University, London, and has held positions at UCL, Nottingham, and Oxford University. She co-leads projects on marginalized migrants and communities, cultural competence in healthcare and social care, with extensive research on human trafficking and digital health, innovatively integrating methods for policy impact.

Christina Koulouglioti holds a bachelor's degree in nursing and a master's degree in health care administration from the University of Athens, Greece. She completed her PhD and a post-doctoral fellowship at the School of Nursing, University of Rochester, USA. She currently holds a position as Senior Research Fellow at the Research and Innovation Department of University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust. She has extensive research experience using different quantitative and qualitative methodologies and working with populations across the life span. She is an active member of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.