A substantial proportion of young adults report ongoing problems with sexual functioning in the first 2 years after their cancer diagnosis. These findings justify the need to evaluate and monitor sexual functioning throughout a continuum of care. Cancer 2018;124:398-405. © 2017 American Cancer Society.

This article provides a detailed review of the historical and theoretical context in which culturally competent practice has evolved in the social work profession and enables educators and practitioners to see holistic connections between the past and present. Historical review of the inclusion of diversity content is followed by definitions of culture, cultural competence, and culturally competent practice. We then provide a synthesis of different frameworks currently being used for understanding the development of cultural competence in psychology and social work, and conclude with discussion and implications for social work education and practice.

This study reports on the development and validation of the Civic Engagement Scale (CES). This scale is developed to be easily administered and useful to educators who are seeking to measure the attitudes and behaviors that have been affected by a service-learning experience. This instrument was administered as a validation study in a purposive sample of social work and education majors at three universities (N = 513) with a return of 354 (69%). After the reliability and validity analysis was completed, the Attitude subscale was left with eight items and a Cronbach's alpha level of .91. The Behavior subscale was left with six items and a Cronbach's alpha level of .85. Principal component analysis indicated a two-dimensional scale with high loadings on both factors (mean factor loading for the attitude factor = .79, and mean factor loading for the behavior factor = .77). These results indicate that the CES is strong enough to recommend its use in educational settings. Preliminary use has demonstrated that this scale will be useful to researchers seeking to better understand the relationship of attitudes and behaviors with civic engagement in the service-learning setting. The primary limitations of this research are that the sample was limited to social work and education majors who were primarily White (n = 312, 88.1%) and female (n = 294, 83.1%). Therefore, further research would be needed to generalize this research to other populations.

For students of the health care professions to succeed in today's healthcare environment, they must be prepared to collaborate with other professionals and practice on interdisciplinary teams. As most will care for patients with cancer, they must also understand the principles of palliative care and its integration into oncology. This article reports the success of one university's effort to design and implement an interdisciplinary curriculum teaching team-based palliative care in oncology which was mandatory for medical, nursing, social work and chaplaincy students. Quantitative evaluation indicated that students made significant improvements related to palliative care knowledge and skills and readiness for interprofessional education. Qualitative feedback revealed that students appreciated the experiential aspects of the curriculum most, especially the opportunity to observe palliative teams at work and practice team-based skills with other learners. While there exist many obstacles to interprofessional education and hands-on learning, the value of such experiences to the learners justifies efforts to initiate and continue similar programs in the health sciences.

With the growth of the older adult population increasing at an exponential rate, caring for this population has become increasingly difficult. As many choose to age in place (i.e., in the home environment), both the public and private sectors are being forced to respond. The emergence of home health care and the employment of home care aides is one of the ways that the industry has evolved to meet this crisis. However, retention of home care aides has proven problematic. This study explores factors affecting home care aide retention in agencies that employ home care aides. A sample of 116 home care aides employed by three agencies was surveyed to identify retention issues relative to the home care aide. A hypothetical model of home care aid job retention was tested with a hierarchical regression analysis, where 11 variables were entered in five steps, using a time-sequenced order. The results indicated that the hypothetical model was able to explain 41% of the variance in months employed as home care aides, with age, education, wages earned, and intrinsic satisfaction as the most significant contributors to the model. Being able to predict retention of home care aides allows employing agencies to realign themselves to retain workers and improve quality of care. However, it is important to realize that the same traits that predict retention among home care aides may also leave these workers vulnerable to exploitation.

A fragmented workforce consisting of multiple disciplines with varying levels of training and limited ability to work as a team often provides care to older adults. Interprofessional education (IPE) is essential for preparing practitioners for the effective teamwork required for community-based, holistic, person-centered care of the older adults. Despite numerous programs and offerings to advance education and interdisciplinary patient care, there is an unmet need for geriatric IPE, especially as it relates to community-dwelling older adults and caregivers in medically underserved areas. A core group of university faculty from multiple disciplines received funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration Geriatric Workforce Enhancement Program to collaborate with community-based providers from several Area Agencies on Aging in the creation and implementation of the Interprofessional Curriculum for the Care of Older Adults (iCCOA). This geriatric curriculum is interprofessional, comprehensive, and community-based. Learners include third-year nursing students, nurse practitioner students, third-year medical students, internal medicine and family medicine residents, master’s level social work students, third-year pharmacy students, pharmacy residents, third-year dental students, dental hygiene students, community-based organization professionals, practicing community organizers, and community health navigators. This article describes the efforts, successes, and challenges experienced with this endeavor, including securing funding, ensuring equal representation of the disciplines, adding new components to already crowded curricula, building curriculum on best practices, improving faculty expertise in IPE, managing logistics, and ensuring comprehensive evaluation. The results summarize the iCCOA components, as well as the interprofessional domains, knowledge, and competencies.

Interdisciplinary palliative education can be successful if faculty teams are willing to confront challenges, accept feedback on multiple levels, and compromise while maintaining focus on desired learner outcomes.

This article provides the results of a photovoice project conducted with older adults affected by diabetes living in three rural counties in the southern region of the United States. Photovoice is a community-based participatory action methodology that puts the tools of research in the hands of participants. This project was an initial community engagement activity that promoted trust-building and formed part of a larger comprehensive community needs assessment. The process revealed themes of personal and community resilience focused on the daily living with diabetes, formal and informal supports, barriers to taking care of their diabetes, accessibility to fruits and vegetables, changes to food preparation and consumption, and exercise supports and barriers. The impact of the photovoice project on the participants and the implications for practice are discussed.