Culturally Competent Spiritual Care During Health Disasters and Emergencies: Developments in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics

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.

Dr 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) program. 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.

Dr Runa Lazzarino obtained her PhD from the University of Milano-Bicocca. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist working at the intersection of migration, health, and advanced technologies in healthcare. Currently based at Middlesex University, London, she has held positions at UCL, Nottingham, and Oxford University. She co-leads projects on marginalised migrants and communities, cultural competence in health and social care, with research on human trafficking, gender migration, and digital health, integrating ethnography and creative methods for policy impact.

Dr 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 School of Nursing, University of Rochester, USA. She currently holds a position as a 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.