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The purpose of this article is to meet Professor Paul T.P. Wong, PhD, CPscyh, who is based at the Department of Psychology, Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. Wong represents an interesting case of how a racial/cultural minority could achieve success in a hostile environment consisting of the systemic biases of injustice, discrimination and marginalization. His life also epitomizes how one can experience the paradoxical truth of healing and flourishing in an upside-down world through the positive suffering mindset (PSM).

This case study is presented in two sections: a positive autoethnography written by Wong, followed by his answers to ten questions. The core methodology of positive autoethnography allows people to understand how Wong’s life experience of being a war baby in China, a constant outsider and a lone voice in Western culture, has shaped a very different vision of meaning, positive mental health and global flourishing.

Wong reveals how to live a life of meaning and happiness for all the suffering people in a difficult world. He has researched the positive psychology of suffering for 60 years, from effective coping with stress and searching for meaning to successful aging and positive death. According to Wong’s suffering hypothesis and the emerging paradigm of existential positive psychology (Wong, 2021), cultivating a PSM is essential for healing and flourishing in all seasons of life.

An expanding literature has been developed to illustrate why the missing link in well-being research is how to transcend and transform suffering into triumph. Wong reveals how this emerging area of research is still not fully embraced by mainstream psychology dominated by the individualistic Euro-American culture, and thus why, in an adversarial milieu, existential positive psychology is limited by its inability to attract more researchers to test out Wong’s suffering hypothesis.

The wisdom and helpful tools presented here may enable people to achieve mature happiness and existential well-being even when they have a very painful past, a very difficult present and a bleak future.

This autoethnographic case study offers new grounds for hope for all those who are injured by life, marginalized by systemic biases or tormented by chronic illnesses and disorders. It also provides a road map for a better world with more decent human beings who dare to stand up for justice, integrity and compassion.

Meaning as reflected in suffering is according to Wong the most powerful force to bring out either the worst or the best in people. The new science of suffering shows us how the authors can achieve positive transformation through cultivating a PSM, no matter how harsh one’s fate may be.

COVID-19 has profoundly shaped human interactions, and, within public healthcare systems, care relations. Through the lens of social suffering, this study explores how employee innovation is shaped by the pandemic crisis and different managerial approaches in the context of public geriatric care in Northeast Italy.

This study adopts a qualitative methodology. A total of 29 semi-structured, open-ended interviews were conducted with 23 healthcare professionals involved in geriatric care, with managerial and without managerial positions. Observation was integrated as auxiliary research to further capture on an operational level the interactions among the actors involved.

The COVID-19 crisis significantly shaped employee innovation for healthcare professionals, as the suffering it provoked in the system motivated and urged them to engage in innovative initiatives. Where employees’ engagement in innovation was recognized by the management, it was found that the suffering was mitigated, and creativity and solidarity emerged in the innovation process. Where top-down approaches did not recognize employees’ efforts and innovative initiatives, need-driven innovation and greater tensions came forward, enhancing the overall suffering in care relations and resulting in some employees considering leaving their profession.

This study is based on a single case study.

This study further highlights the employee participation in innovation as a crucial practical implication for sustaining the quality of public care and assistance. A practical implication emerging from this study suggests that “ordinary” healthcare professionals’ engagement in innovative initiatives and in their operationalization should be encouraged by the organization. In a system as complex as the public healthcare one, valuing the bottom-up, clinical inputs appears fundamental if innovation is to move away from mere technological adaptation to embrace a more comprehensive process, involving the professionals who are engaging in innovative endeavors. From a managerial point of view, adopting an approach that recognizes, supports and provides coordination to employee innovation seems instrumental to nurture an environment where employee voices feel heard, and creativity, solidarity and overall positive collaboration can occur. Thus, another significant practical implication includes the retention of healthcare professionals in the public sector in times of crisis.

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the necessity to explore the “human side” of innovation and its connection to emerging human needs during a crisis is growing. This study focuses on employee participation in innovation processes due to COVID-19, thus contributing to the employee-driven innovation (EDI) literature. Through the lens of social suffering, it scrutinizes the interactions between bottom-up perceptions and responses and top-down strategies in a public healthcare setting. Hence, this study addresses two major gaps present in EDI literature, for the most part focused on the private sector and on the managerial structures, tools and interventions.

The study examines the effects of organizational compassion during the COVID-19 pandemic on teachers' mental health and, consequently, their commitment and work engagement. The study tests a serial mediation model for the effects of organizational compassion on employee engagement via mental health and the three components of organizational commitment.

A cross-sectional sample (N = 436) completed an online questionnaire towards the end of the prolonged lockdown of schools in Uganda (2021–2022). Serial mediation analysis in PROCESS Macro was employed to test the hypotheses.

As hypothesized, organizational compassion was significantly related to teachers' mental health, the three components of organizational commitment, and employee engagement. A double mediation path of the effects of organizational compassion on employee engagement via mental health and affective commitment was significant.

The findings highlight how organizational compassion benefits employees’ psychological health and work attitudes and behavior. The findings draw attention to the need to design compassion practices that boost the emotional value of organizational compassion to the individual over the economic and normative value.

The study contributes to the literature on organizational compassion outcomes by focusing on employee engagement and the underlying mediating mechanisms. The study is also one of the few that has examined the effects of organizational compassion on the three components of organizational commitment.

This systematic review (SR) aims to evaluate and summarize the effectiveness of using eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) intervention among individuals diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as to highlight the standardized EMDR-based interventional protocol.

This SR is guided according to preferred reporting items for SRs and meta-analyses standards. Several online databases were used in searching for eligible studies in peer-reviewed journals relevant to the study keywords. The included studies were SRs and clinical trials that used EMDR interventions among patients experiencing PTSD symptoms, older than 18 years and were published in English language from 2015 to 2022. Three researchers independently contributed to study selections, data extraction and study evaluations from different aspects, including quality assessment, risk of bias and study synthesis.

A total of eight published studies met the inclusion criteria and were included in this SR; four articles were randomized controlled trials and four were SR and meta-analysis studies. In all included studies, the EMDR was used as a primary psychotherapy intervention for PTSD symptoms. The results of this extensive and comprehensive review showed that EMDR is an effective psychotherapeutic intervention to reduce and control the severity of symptoms among individuals with PTSD.

It is important to acknowledge several limitations inherent in this study. First and foremost, it is noteworthy to mention that only studies conducted in the English language were included in this review, potentially restricting the overall scope and diversity of the findings. Furthermore, the number of studies incorporated into this review was limited, which may have implications for the comprehensiveness and generalizability of the results. Finally, it is worth noting that certain studies within this review had a relatively small sample size, which could potentially limit the statistical power and precision of the conclusions drawn.

This paper, a review of the literature, gives an overview of EMDR effectiveness, provides baseline information and plays a significant role in decreasing the gap in Jordanian literature regarding using EMDR as the strongest evident psychotherapy approach for PTSD treatment to help psychiatrists, psychologists and psychiatric nurses in the health-care sectors to design comprehensive strategies to enhance and improve the quality of health care and patients’ status.

EMDR intervention offers significant alternative treatment opportunities for individuals suffering from PTSD, depression and anxiety. The implementation of EMDR for depression, anxiety and PTSD improves patient outcomes as compared to standard therapeutic modalities in PTSD.

This SR gives an overview and explains strong supportive evidence for the effectiveness of EMDR interventions among individuals with PTSD. Therefore, EMDR therapy could be assumed as one standard treatment option for PTSD, aiming at reducing treatment duration and cost of treatment and restoring the mental well-being and functionality of those suffering from PTSD.

The purpose of this study is to explore the determinants of needle stick injuries (NSIs) suffering in terms of occupational health and safety (OHS) coverage critically for health-care workers’ rights in Pakistan.

This is a qualitative study involving the designing of a questionnaire followed by the World Health Organization’s NSI prevention assessment tool and nationally published reports covering health-care workers’ OHS rights protection. A total of 17 public and private hospitals were surveyed with a two-stage sampling method. Descriptive and inferential statistics (one-way analysis of variance with multiple comparison tests) were applied and significant results were discussed (p = 0.05 & p = 0.01). The results were discussed critically in the context of the OHS rights of health-care workers.

Analysis revealed the following significant relationships: job type and safety behavior; age group of health-care workers and safety management; injection usage per day and safety behavior; past year’s needle sticks injuries cases with safety behavior and occupational exposure; work shift and work experience with safety knowledge, safety awareness and work experience with safety management. It was also found there is no specific OHS law in the country for health-care workers.

This study is limited in terms of sampling size and quantification of NSI burden among health-care workers.

Improved OHS management practices among health-care workers can control NSIs that ultimately ensure their workplace OHS rights. Health-care workers need OHS coverage in terms of awareness about potential workplace hazards and job training accordingly. Findings from extensive studies of a similar kind can give useful policy directions for workplace health management in health-care setup at the national level.

This study highlights the importance of OHS coverage for health-care workers in hospitals. It reports different determinants of NSIs suffering causing health-care worker’s rights violations at the workplace in Pakistan.

The study aims to identify the predictors of depression and anxiety among carers of hospitalized patients with mental illness in Eradah Complex for Mental Health Hospital.

A descriptive correlational study design was conducted using a convenient sample of family carers of patients with mental illness (N = 216). The study used the Beck Depression Inventory and Anxiety Inventory scales.

The results of regression models revealed that the socio-demographic characteristics of the family carers showed that age is a statistically significant predictor of family carers depression and anxiety scores. In addition, the age of the family carers explained 36% of the variance in the family carers depression and anxiety scores, while marital status explained 64% of the total variance in the family carers’ depression and anxiety scores. Furthermore, having received support in caring significantly predicted depression and anxiety scores, and this was the case for occupation status and being diagnosed with any form of chronic illness.

Based on the findings of this study, the authors opine that evaluations of carers’ cognitive strategies and social support are needed to determine the risk of depression in carers of mental patients.

This study is the one of the limited studies conducted in Saudi Arabia to identify predictor of depression and anxiety among caregivers of hospitalized patients with mental illness. The study has used a validated scales to assess the main study outcomes.

People with pre-existing mental health conditions are more likely to be affected by global crises. The Covid-19 pandemic has presented them with unique challenges, including reduced contact with the psychiatric rehabilitation and support systems. Thus, understanding the emotional experience of this population may assist mental health organizations in future global crises.

In this paper, researchers analyzed the discourse of the mentally ill during the Covid-19 pandemic, as reflected in Israeli Facebook groups: three private groups and one public group. Researchers explored the language, reactions, emotions and sentiments used in these groups during the year before the pandemic, outbreak periods and remission periods, as well as the period before the vaccine’s introduction and after its appearance.

Analyzing groups’ discourse using the collective emotion theory suggests that the group that expressed the most significant difficulty was the Depression group, while individuals who suffer from social phobia/anxiety and PTSD were less affected during the lockdowns and restrictions forced by the outbreak.

Findings may serve as a tool for service providers during crises to monitor patients’ conditions, and assist individuals who need support and help.

The study aims to optimize truck routes by minimizing social and economic costs. It introduces a strategy involving diverse drones and their potential for reusing at DNs based on flight range. In HTDRP-DC, trucks can select and transport various drones to LDs to reduce deprivation time. This study estimates the nonlinear deprivation cost function using a linear two-piece-wise function, leading to MILP formulations. A heuristic-based Benders Decomposition approach is implemented to address medium and large instances. Valid inequalities and a heuristic method enhance convergence boundaries, ensuring an efficient solution methodology.

Research has yet to address critical factors in disaster logistics: minimizing the social and economic costs simultaneously and using drones in relief distribution; deprivation as a social cost measures the human suffering from a shortage of relief supplies. The proposed hybrid truck-drone routing problem minimizing deprivation cost (HTDRP-DC) involves distributing relief supplies to dispersed demand nodes with undamaged (LDs) or damaged (DNs) access roads, utilizing multiple trucks and diverse drones. A Benders Decomposition approach is enhanced by accelerating techniques.

Incorporating deprivation and economic costs results in selecting optimal routes, effectively reducing the time required to assist affected areas. Additionally, employing various drone types and their reuse in damaged nodes reduces deprivation time and associated deprivation costs. The study employs valid inequalities and the heuristic method to solve the master problem, substantially reducing computational time and iterations compared to GAMS and classical Benders Decomposition Algorithm. The proposed heuristic-based Benders Decomposition approach is applied to a disaster in Tehran, demonstrating efficient solutions for the HTDRP-DC regarding computational time and convergence rate.

Current research introduces an HTDRP-DC problem that addresses minimizing deprivation costs considering the vehicle’s arrival time as the deprivation time, offering a unique solution to optimize route selection in relief distribution. Furthermore, integrating heuristic methods and valid inequalities into the Benders Decomposition approach enhances its effectiveness in solving complex routing challenges in disaster scenarios.

The outbreak of COVID-19 not only had serious negative impacts on the world economy but also on the global mental health because of the psychological disorders associated with the spread of the pandemic, the increased degree of uncertainty and the unprecedented measures taken by different countries to face the pandemic’s spread. This paper analyses the mental health well-being of individuals in selected MENA countries (Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt) during the pandemic.

The study employs a pooled OLS model using the Economic Research Forum (ERF) COVID-19 MENA Monitor Survey panel dataset collected during 2020 and 2021.

The findings show that there is no association between the mental health of individuals in the selected countries and their age, gender, family size, marital status, receipt of social support and participation in care work. Mental health improved at higher levels of education, being employed, being a rural area resident and living in Morocco or Tunisia compared to living in Jordan while it worsened as income declined, food insecurity and anxiety about being infected with Covid-19 increased, being a resident in camps, and during waves 4 and 5. Based on these results, it is recommended that suitable financial, physical and human resources should be directed towards the provision of mental health care services in the region. Also, mental health care services should be accessible to different population groups, with a special focus towards the most vulnerable since they are more prone to mental illnesses, especially during health crises and economic shocks. This should be accompanied by increasing awareness about the provided services and reducing stigma against mental illnesses. Furthermore, introduction of policies targeted towards reducing food insecurity and income instability can play a key role in enhancing mental well-being.

Although few papers have previously investigated the impact of COVID-19 on mental health in MENA countries, most of them have focused on a country-level analysis and adopted a gender perspective. Hence, this paper aims at exploring the association between mental health well-being and socio-economic factors in selected MENA countries during the pandemic.

This study aims to investigate earnings management practice of classification shifting of revenues in Chinese-listed firms.

The study employs a dataset of 2,920 A-listed firms from Chinese stock exchanges of Shanghai and Shenzhen for the period of 2003–2019. We apply both univariate and panel regression analysis by using fixed effect estimation with robust standard errors.

Our findings reveal that firms misclassify revenues by taking advantage of the flexibility provided by applicable financial reporting standards. The empirical evidence obtained through regression analysis suggest that managers reclassify non-operating revenues as operating revenue to alter the economic reality while seeking the advantage of financial reports users’ vulnerability for valuing the upper half of income statement items more as compared to lower part. The results further indicate that international financial reporting standards adoption inhibits the earnings management practices using classification shifting of revenues. It is also concluded that firms, which are suffering losses or having low growth, are more persistently involved in misclassification of revenues.

The study is unique from the point of view that it investigates earnings management from the prospective of revenue’s classification in an emerging market characterized by various market imperfections such as lower investor protection and higher information asymmetry.