Background: Palliative care provides holistic support, addressing physical, psychological, social, emotional, and spiritual dimensions of suffering, known as “total pain”, to improve patients’ quality of life. Patients often rely on healthcare professionals, particularly nurses, for support. This study aimed to develop and validate questionnaires assessing nurses’ perceptions of psychological, social, and spiritual issues in palliative care and their effectiveness in managing them. Methods: Two self-rated questionnaires were created: the Psychological, Social, and Spiritual Problems of Palliative Patients’ Questionnaire and the Effectiveness in Coping with the Psychological, Social, and Spiritual Challenges of Palliative Care Patients. The study surveyed 237 nurses caring for palliative patients in Split Dalmatian County, Croatia. Results: The questionnaires demonstrated high reliability with Cronbach’s α values of 0.98 and 0.99. Factor analysis revealed four factors for the first questionnaire and three for the second. Nurses primarily perceived patients as experiencing fear and emotional/spiritual suffering, with the greatest difficulty coping with the fear of the disease outcomes. Nurses acknowledged the need for improvement in addressing patient challenges, highlighting gaps in the Croatian system. Conclusions: Ongoing efforts are crucial to prioritize palliative care globally, with nursing professionals playing a vital role in symptom management.

Background/Objectives: Vaccine hesitancy, recognized by the WHO as a significant global health threat, undermines vaccination efforts. This study aimed to adapt and validate the Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) Survey for Croatian parents to understand vaccine hesitancy better. Methods: A cross-sectional study with 1814 Croatian parents was conducted using the PACV survey, translated using a double-back translation method. The psychometrics of the questionnaire were examined, including content validity, dimensionality, construct validity, discriminant validity, and reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) assessed the original model’s validity, but the original model fit poorly, prompting exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to identify latent factors. Reliability was measured using Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s omega. Results: EFA identified a five-factor model with factors labeled “Safety”, “Schedule”, “Attitudes”, “Behavior”, and “Trust”. Subsequent CFA confirmed this model with acceptable to good fit indices. Discriminant validity was also confirmed. Reliability analyses indicated high internal consistency, with total Cronbach’s alpha at 0.926 and McDonald’s omega at 0.931. Conclusions: The adapted PACV is a valid and reliable tool for identifying vaccine hesitancy among Croatian parents. This study revealed high vaccine hesitancy among Croatian parents, emphasizing the need for targeted interventions.

Background: Palliative care addresses not only physical symptoms but also the social, psychological, and spiritual needs of patients. Nurses play a key role in identifying and responding to these needs, yet their perceptions and preparedness may vary. Objectives: This study aimed to explore nurses’ perspectives on the psychological, social, and spiritual needs of palliative patients, assess how well these needs are being met, and examine the influence of nurses’ self-assessed education levels on their evaluations. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 237 registered nurses with palliative care experience in Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia. Two validated questionnaires were used to assess the perceived importance of 53 patient needs and the extent to which these needs were satisfied. Results: Findings revealed significant discrepancies between the perceived importance and satisfaction of nearly all psychological, social, and spiritual needs (p < 0.001), particularly regarding fear of death, suffering, and future uncertainty. Only 38.4% of nurses considered themselves adequately trained in palliative care, though most had some educational exposure to it. No statistical differences were found in need assessment based on nurses’ self-rated education. Most nurses reported emotional exhaustion (72.6%) and supported interdisciplinary care (95.8%), while 90.3% noted that responsibility for care often falls on families. Conclusions: Nurses recognize critical unmet needs in palliative patients and feel insufficiently prepared to address them. These findings underscore the need to improve palliative care education, provide emotional support for nurses, and implement systemic healthcare reforms to ensure comprehensive, dignified care.

Due to cannabidiol’s health benefits and absence of serious side effects, its use is constantly growing. This is a survey-based cross-sectional study that was conducted to determine Croatian pharmacists’, physicians’, and students’ knowledge and attitudes about cannabidiol (CBD). Two questionnaires were created, one for students and the other for physicians and pharmacists. Our participants (in total 874: 473 students and 401 physicians and pharmacists) generally had positive attitudes towards CBD therapy as approximately 60% of them believe that CBD treatment is generally efficacious. Participants had positive attitudes toward the therapeutic value of CBD, especially pharmacists and pharmacy students (63.8% and 72.2%, respectively). Pharmacists were significantly more convinced that CBD could reduce the use of opioids prescribed for chronic pain (p < 0.05). Only 17.5% of students had read scientific papers about CBD, compared to a significantly higher percentage of physicians and pharmacists (43.0% and 47.8%, respectively) (p < 0.05). This study revealed a gap in knowledge regarding CBD, since 89.3% of pharmacists and physicians, as well as 84.8% of students, believe they need more education about CBD. We conclude that it is important to improve the educational curricula so that medical professionals can recommend CBD use to their patients when needed.

Uvod: Inducirani pobačaj jedna je od najosjetljivijih tema suvremene bioetike koja izaziva podijeljena mišljenja, osobito među budućim zdravstvenim djelatnicima. Cilj istraživanja bio je ispitati stavove studenata zdravstvenih studija prema moralnoj opravdanosti induciranog pobačaja te utjecaj religioznosti na te stavove.Metode: Istraživanje je provedeno od siječnja do travnja 2024. među 342 studenta Sveučilišnog odjela zdravstvenih studija u Splitu. Podaci su prikupljeni anonimnim anketnim upitnikom, a analizirani su metodama deskriptivne statistike, Hi kvadrat testa te logističke i linearne regresije.Rezultati: Većina studenata zauzima negativan stav prema induciranom pobačaju, osobito u kasnijim fazama trudnoće i u situacijama koje ne smatraju opravdanima. Ipak, pobačaj uglavnom podržavaju u slučaju ugroze zdravlja majke, teških malformacija fetusa ili silovanja. Religioznost se pokazala značajnim prediktorom negativnih stavova, pri čemu češće prakticiranje vjere smanjuje spremnost za sudjelovanje u izvođenju pobačaja.Zaključak: Stavovi studenata zdravstvenih studija prema induciranom pobačaju u velikoj mjeri ovise o njihovim religijskim uvjerenjima.

Background: Breast cancer-related lymphedema is a common long-term complication of breast cancer treatment that affects physical functioning, emotional well-being, and quality of life. Although the Lymphedema Quality of Life Questionnaire-Arm (LYMQoL-Arm) is widely used internationally, no Croatian version has been available. The primary objective of this study was to translate and validate the Lymphedema Quality of Life Questionnaire-Upper Limb-Croatian (LYMQoL-UL-CRO) version and evaluate its psychometric properties. A secondary objective was to examine associations between its scores and the relative volume change (RVC) of the affected limb to assess construct validity further. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in 87 women at least six months post-treatment. The questionnaire was translated using a forward-backward procedure. Participants completed the LYMQoL-UL-CRO, the Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36), Pain Intensity Numerical Rating Scale, and underwent clinical examination and limb-volume assessment. Test–retest reliability was assessed in 68 participants after 10 days. Psychometric analyses included internal consistency, intraclass correlation coefficients, measurement error indices, construct and discriminant validity tests, exploratory factor analysis, and evaluation of floor and ceiling effects. Results: LYMQoL-UL-CRO domains demonstrated acceptable to strong internal consistency and moderate test–retest reliability, with low measurement error. Strong negative correlations with the SF-36 Physical Component Summary supported construct validity, and participants with RVC ≥ 5% reported worse scores, supporting discriminant validity. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed the original four-factor structure, and no floor or ceiling effects were observed. Conclusions: The LYMQoL-UL-CRO is a reliable, valid, and culturally appropriate tool for assessing quality of life in Croatian breast cancer survivors with upper-limb lymphedema.