Background: Spiritual support should be offered to all patients and their families regardless of their affiliated status with an organized religion. Aim: To understand nonreligious theistic parents’ spirituality and to explore how parents discuss death with their terminally ill children in mainland China. Design: Qualitative study. Setting/participants: This study was conducted in the hematology oncology center at Beijing Children’s Hospital. Participants in this study included 16 bereaved parents. Results: Participants described themselves as nonreligious but showed a tendency toward a particular religion. Parents sought religious support in the face of the life-threatening conditions that affected their child and regarded the religious belief as an important way to get psychological and spiritual comfort after experiencing the death of their child. Religious support could partially address parents’ spiritual needs. Parents’ spiritual needs still require other supports such as bereavement services, death education, and family support groups. Some parents stated that it was difficult to find a way to discuss death with their children. For patients who come from nonreligious theistic families, their understanding of death was more complex and may be related to atheism. Conclusion: Religious support could be an element of spiritual support for nonreligious theistic parents of terminally ill children. Multiple strategies including religious supports and nonreligious supports should be rationally integrated into spiritual support of nonreligious theistic family. Patient’s personal belief in death should be assessed before discussing death with them.
This paper investigated the mechanism of enhancing the mechanical and tribological properties of nitrile rubber (NBR) with SiO 2 on the molecular scale. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed on molecular structure models of pure NBR, NBR/SiO 2 and three-layer friction pairs. The results showed that the hydrogen bonds and interfacial interaction between SiO 2 and NBR molecular chains decreased the fractional free volume of NBR nanocomposites, and increased the shear modulus of NBR by 25% compared with that of pure NBR. During the friction process, SiO 2 decreased the radius of gyration of NBR molecular chains and effectively lowered the peak atomic velocity, the peak temperature and the peak friction stress at the interface between NBR and copper atoms. The average friction stress on NBR/SiO 2 was 34% lower than that on NBR, which meant the tribological properties of NBR were signi cantly improved by SiO 2 . The mechanism of SiO 2 reinforcing NBR on a molecular scale can lay a theoretical foundation for the design of water-lubricated rubber bearings.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.