Sjuksköterskor på neonatalavdelning är ansvariga för att vårda barn såväl som föräldrar. Att bli förälder är sedan tidigare känt som ett livsomvälvande tillfälle, men då barnet är i behov av neonatalvård blir situationen skrämmande för föräldrarna. Sjuksköterskornas uppgift är att stödja och hjälpa föräldrarna i att hantera sina upplevelser. Syftet var att beskriva föräldrars upplevelser i samband med att deras barn vårdas på neonatalavdelning. Studien genomfördes som en litteraturstudie där 12 artiklar låg till grund för resultatet. Tre teman framkom; delaktighet, anknytning och föräldrarollen. Föräldrar vars barn vårdades på neonatalavdelning beskrev positiva och negativa upplevelser. Hur upplevelserna uppfattades berodde på sjuksköterskornas möjlighet att stötta och skapa delaktighet i barnets vård. Centralt var upplevelser av exklusion och svårigheter att se sig själva som föräldrar. Samtidigt växte föräldrarollen när föräldrarna upplevde närhet till sitt barn. Rädsla för barnets tillstånd och överlevnad var tydligt överhängande och påverkade föräldrarnas anknytning till barnet. Anknytningen utvecklades då barnet sågs som en stark individ. Ytterligare forskning om föräldrars upplevelser då deras barn vårdas på neonatalavdelning behövs för att sjuksköterskor ska kunna ge stöd till föräldrarna i denna unika situation. / Nurses at a neonatal unit is in charge of caring for babies as well as the parents. Becoming a parent is known as a life changing moment but when the baby is in need of neonatal care the situation becomes terrifying. Nurses’ duties is to support and help the parents in coping with their experiences. The aim of the study was to describe parents’ experiences while their child was cared for in a neonatal unit. The study was a literature review with 12 scientific articles that composed the result. Three headings emerged; participation, attachment and the parental role. Parents’ whos baby was cared for in a neonatal unit described positive and negative experiences. How the experiences were perceived depended on the nurses’ possibilities to support and create participation in the baby’s care. Experiences of exclusion and difficulties seeing themselves as parents were fundamental. At the same time the parental role grew stronger as the parents experienced closeness to their baby. Fear of the baby’s condition and survival was impending and affected the parents’ attachment to their baby. The attachment developed as the baby was percieved as a strong individual. Further research about parents’ experiences while their baby is cared for in a neonatal unit is needed so that nurses are able to give support to parents in this unique situation.

Background: Online victimisation during adolescence is associated with adverse outcomes across multiple domains. However, previous research has demonstrated that some adolescents are at greater risk of experiencing online victimisation than others. Literature on traditional peer victimisation has highlighted the importance of children’s early experiences and the family context but it is unclear how these factors relate to online victimisation. The first study reviews the evidence for associations between the phenomenon of cyber-victimisation (CV) and parenting behaviours, whereas the second study investigates online victimisation which includes experiences of online harassment and unwanted contact of a sexual or offensive nature. Aim: A systematic review was conducted to determine whether positive parenting behaviours protect against CV during adolescence. An empirical study investigated whether experiences of childhood maltreatment were associated with online victimisation and whether this relationship was mediated by attachment insecurity and risky electronic communication in an adolescent sample. Method: A systematic review of the literature identified seventeen studies which met inclusion criteria. Parenting behaviours were categorised into offline and online parenting behaviours and the findings from each study were reported. Studies were also assessed against 15 quality criteria. In the second study, 123 students aged 12- 16 were recruited. Five self-report questionnaires were administered measuring experiences of childhood maltreatment, attachment, risky electronic communication, electronic media use and online victimisation. Results: Offline parenting behaviours, particularly general monitoring, may reduce the likelihood of adolescents experiencing CV. There was greater variation in the findings relating to online parental mediation strategies, but in general these strategies did not consistently predict a significant increase nor a reduction in CV. The empirical study found that whilst attachment anxiety partially mediated the relationship between childhood maltreatment and online victimisation, attachment avoidance and risky electronic communication did not. However, childhood maltreatment and risky electronic communication were significant predictors of online victimisation. Conclusion: Parenting behaviours and early childhood experiences may play an important role in the victimisation of adolescents online. Interventions which promote positive parenting and attachment security may help to protect young people against online victimisation. However, more empirically rigorous and longitudinal studies are needed to enhance our understanding of the risk factors and the protective factors involved.

Background: Maltreated children, including those who are looked after away from home, are amongst the most vulnerable members of society. Due to the relational trauma that most looked after children have experienced they are at increased risk of attachment and mental health difficulties, which can impede their ability to form close relationships with new carers. Indeed, many such children behave in ways that fail to elicit caregiving or even as if they do not need caregivers, and providing sensitive, therapeutic care to these vulnerable children can be a considerable challenge. Aims: The aims of this thesis were threefold: to review the impact of maltreatment experiences on children’s executive functioning, to investigate the prevalence of attachment and trauma-related difficulties in children in foster care, and their impact on the parenting task of foster carers. Methods: Aims are addressed in two journal articles. To address the first aim, a systematic review of research regarding the association between maltreatment and executive function in children and adolescents is presented in journal article one. Subsequent aims are addressed in journal article two, a cross-sectional study with foster carers of children in care aged 3-12 years who completed self-report measures investigating the emotional, behavioural, attachment and trauma related difficulties of their foster child, the perceived quality of the relationship, and levels of parenting stress and sense of competence. Results: The systematic review revealed that the majority of studies demonstrated a significant impairment in one or more areas of executive ability in maltreated children, with particular support for impairments in inhibitory control, executive working memory and decision making. However, there was only limited support for impairments in cognitive flexibility, planning/problem solving, and fluency. Furthermore, there was considerable variability between studies in the specific deficits reported. Results from the empirical study highlight the prevalence of attachment and trauma-related difficulties in children in foster care. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that levels of foster carer-rated inhibited attachment behaviour was a significant predictor of quality of the foster carer-child relationship and parenting stress. The level of emotional and behavioural difficulties also emerged as a significant predictor of quality of the foster carer-child relationship, and parenting sense of competence. Conclusions: This thesis highlights the pervasive impact of relational trauma on children. Results of the systematic review indicate its impact on children’s executive ability. The empirical study reveals the high prevalence of attachment and trauma-related difficulties in children in foster care, and provides insight into factors related to quality of the foster carer-child relationship, and the stress and sense of competence of foster carers. Implications for interventions and service provision regarding maltreated children who become looked after away from home, and their carers, are discussed.

Studies of attachment in the community suggest that most people have secure attachment styles, but as many as 40% may have an insecure attachment style (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van Ijzendoorn 2009). Frightening parental behaviour has been found to predict disorganised attachment in infants, which in turn is associated with clinical disturbance in adolescence (Van Ijzendoorn, Schuengel & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1999). Insecure attachment has been found to be disproportionately more common in many psychiatric disorders than the general population: including substance misuse, eating disorders, and Personality Disorder (PD). Transgenerational transmission of attachment has become widely researched over recent years and evidence has shown that a mother's attachment style can predict the attachment style of her infant (Ward, Ramsay, Turnbull, Steele, Steele, & Treasure, 2001). Research has found that a mothers' ability to mentalize about her own early attachment relationships has important implications in her transition to becoming a mother. Motherhood can be challenging for mothers who have good mental health, therefore women with poor mental health may find the transition to motherhood especially stressful. The aim of the current study was to give voice to mothers who have been silenced in many ways, to learn from their struggles and to help services develop more effective ways to reach 'hard to reach' vulnerable mothers. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1984) was conducted with eight mothers who were attending a Mentalization-Based Treatment (MBT; Bateman & Fonagy, 2004) group designed for mothers who had caused harm to their children and had subsequently had them removed from their care. Thematic Analysis was used to analyse the AAI transcripts and five main themes emerged: 'Love and loss', 'Change and confusion', 'Families and normality', 'Safety and boundaries' and 'Strength and vulnerability'. The findings contribute to the field of maternal mental health research and clinical implications are discussed at an individual, organisational and societal level.

Master of Science / School of Family Studies and Human Services / Melinda S. Markham / Childbirth has an effect on an individual and family. In Western culture, the presence of fathers is expected at labor and birth. The role fathers play during pregnancy, labor and birth, and postpartum is ambiguous. Paternal and infant attachment are developed during this transition to parenthood. There are many choices and unexpected outcomes but through childbirth education, individuals and families can be empowered to have a satisfying experience, ultimately setting the family up for success. Military individuals and families have unique and often challenging obstacles when it comes to participation in childbirth. Utilizing education developed to address concerns military individuals and families might face can lead to an empowering and satisfying experience, and help family bonds during a deployment. A module was created to bridge the gap in childbirth education, specifically for military families facing deployment. The module was developed to supplement existing childbirth education curriculum and is divided into three subsections: pregnancy, labor and birth, and postpartum.

The aim of this qualitative study was to explore product attachment among men and women in conjugal associations and to design a series of household objects to encourage product attachment. A preliminary study based on the interview responses of 16 married individuals was used to identify themes and to develop the instrument employed in the main study. The main study sample consisted of eight married couples and the qualitative methodology involved the thematic content analysis of their responses to a questionnaire and in-depth interviews. The findings supported product attachment theory, and masculinity and femininity was reflected by the objects that the participants perceived to be the most valuable. Men tended to prefer objects with a functional value serving a consumer experience, particularly those that they could interact with and/or express the masculine desire to be independent and take an active role. Women were more variable in their preferences, but most became attached to objects with shared, affective and/or affiliative value. The values which made an object special were found, in general, not to be common to both husband and wife; however, those objects with a shared value, reflecting episodic memories concerning their marriage, were highlighted. These findings led to the construction of a tentative explanatory model to expand product attachment theory in the context of married couples. Underpinned by this model, action is recommended to promote the design and segmented marketing of products in order to create an emotional bond for one or both conjugal partners. Designs are proposed for a series of household objects to encourage the progressive development of episodic memories among married couples. Some prospective designs of products specifically targeted to promote shared value among the married couple segment of the market, including furniture and decorative items for the home are described. Further research is recommended to expand product attachment theory to take into consideration the design of objects for the married couples market.

Avfolkning är ett problem för många landsbygdskommuner och de försöker mer eller mindre aktivt göra något åt det. I den här uppsatsen har en textanalys gjorts av tre hälsingekommuners översiktsplaner med syfte att undersöka vad kommunerna gör för att främja återflyttning för att minska avfolkningen. De tre kommunerna som valts ut är Bollnäs, Ovanåker och Söderhamn, kommunerna har en historik av att samarbeta med varandra inom olika områden och tillhör samma arbetsmarknadsregion, men de har olika förutsättningar när det gäller pendling och bostäder. Kommunernas översiktsplaner delades upp i fyra teman, 1 boende, 2 service, 3 arbete och utbildning samt 4 infrastruktur och kommunikation. Dessa fyra teman användes sedan som utgångspunkt för analysen av översiktsplanerna och för att se om kommunerna ser återflyttning som ett alternativ för att lösa problemet med avfolkning. Kommunerna hade likartade lösningar på problemet. Alla kommunerna vill använda sin vackra miljö för att locka människor att flytta till dem och kommunerna vill förbättra pendlingsmöjligheterna för att göra det möjligt för fler människor att bo i kommunerna. Men ingen av kommunerna presenterar någon strategi för att främja återflyttning.

O autismo é uma síndrome comportamental que compromete o desenvolvimento infantil e apresenta múltiplas etiologias. Tem como sintomas típicos, aparentes antes do 3o ano de vida: prejuízo social, dificuldade na comunicação e ausência de atividades imaginativas, que são substituídas por comportamentos repetitivos. A taxa de prevalência varia de 3 até 16 crianças em cada 10.000, e a incidência é maior em meninos. A falha no contato afetivo e o déficit na habilidade em partilhar experiências internas têm sido objeto de investigações. Os resultados desses estudos têm demonstrado que as crianças com autismo desenvolvem apego em relação aos seus cuidadores, porém manifestam de uma forma não convencional. Esse estudo teve como objetivo investigar os indicadores de apego em crianças com autismo, a partir de um sistema de codificação dos comportamentos de apego que levou em consideração as idiossincrasias dessa população. Participaram desse estudo 10 crianças com autismo (AU), 10 crianças portadoras de síndrome de Down (SD), com idades entre 3 e 8 anos, e 10 crianças com desenvolvimento típico (DT) com idades entre 1 e 3 anos, todas do sexo masculino. Uma sessão de observação de brincadeira livre, constando de cinco episódios, foi filmada para avaliar os comportamentos interativos entre a mãe e a criança e entre esta e uma pessoa estranha. Os vídeos foram codificados por dois observadores independentes e “cegos” quanto à categoria dos grupos, e cálculos de fidedignidade foram realizados entre os dois observadores. Não foram encontradas diferenças significantes entre os três grupos na maioria dos episódios analisados e nem nas reações das crianças aos encontros, separações e reencontros com a mãe e a pessoa estranha. As crianças com AU apresentaram maior freqüência de comportamento de esquiva apenas no 1o episódio, o que pode decorrer da dificuldade dessas crianças para lidar com situações novas. Ao comparar os resultados do 1o e do 5o episódios, no grupo com AU, no qual as crianças permaneciam somente com a mãe, verificou-se uma freqüência maior dos comportamentos de Interação à Distância e Esquiva no 1o episódio. Na comparação dos resultados do 1o (Mãe/Criança) e do 3o (Criança/Estranho) episódios, no grupo com AU, o comportamento de Interação a Distância foi mais freqüente em relação à mãe do que ao estranho. Esses resultados sugerem a ocorrência de apego entre a criança com AU e suas mães e mostram as vantagens de se usar análises que considerem as peculiaridades desses comportamentos. / Autism is a comportamental syndrome that commits the child’s development and presents multiple etiologies. Typical symptoms are social damage, difficulty in verbal and no-verbal communication and absence of imaginative activities, that are replaced by repetitive behaviors. The symptoms must be apparent in the first 36 months of life. Prevalence rate varies of three up to 16 children in each 10.000, and the incidence is larger in boys. Some of the central characteristics of autism, as the flaw in the affective contact and the deficit in the ability of sharing internal experiences as intentions and feelings, have been object of investigations. Results of these studies show that the children with autism develop attachment in relation to their caretakers, although they do it in a non conventional way. This study aims to investigate the attachment behaviors in children with autism, using a code system that takes into account the idiosyncrasies of this population. Ten boys with autism (AU), 10 boys with Down syndrome (SD), with ages between 3 and 8 years, and 10 boys with typical development (DT) with ages between 1 and 3 years, participated in the study. A free-play session was used to observe the interactive behaviors either between the child and the mother, and also the strange. The videos were coded by two independent observers “blind” to the category of the groups. The results showed that the children with AU presented larger frequency of avoidant behavior, then the other groups, only in the 1o episode, which suggests children's difficulty to deal with new situations. It was not found significant differences among the three groups in the others episodes, nor in the reactions of the autistic children to the separations and reunion with the mother. When comparing the results between 1o and the 5o episode, in which the autistic children stayed only with the mother, there was a larger frequency of Distance Interaction and Avoidance, in the 1o episode than in the other one. The comparison of the 1o (Mother/Child) and the 3o (Child /Strange) episode, showed that Distance Interaction behavior was more frequent in relation to mother than to the stranger, in the autism group. These results, altogether, suggest the ocorrence of attachment behavior of the autistic children to their mothers and showed the advantages of using a code system that takes into account the specifities of these behaviors in autism group.

This study is part of the 'Sustainable Estates for the 21st Century' project, designed to understand how best to manage the relationships between people, place and the economy in the Scottish uplands. Large areas of these uplands are owned by private landowners who make significant decisions on land-use. However, past research has provided little insight into landowner decision-making: it is out-dated, inconsistent and offers limited explanation of underlying motives and priorities. In order to address this, a large-scale structured survey was combined with Q methodology and case study interviews on 11 estates. The results indicate that most private landowners have strong economic priorities, but they are not striving solely for instrumental goals of income or financial security. Those on purchased estates are also motivated by personal ambitions: expressive goals. On inherited estates, landowners are motivated by intrinsic motives: a strong sense of duty and attachment to place. Time and money clearly impact significantly on private landowners' motives and priorities for estate management: • The fundamental priority underpinning estate management is economic; only when the estate is financially secure are other issues considered to any significant extent. • Environmental priorities are most evident on purchased estates without economic constraints. • Lengthy family ownership creates strong ties. An increased sense of duty and commitment to social priorities comes with longevity of tenure. Despite the strength of the underlying economic motivation, most landowners are 'satisficers' trying to balance multiple objectives in order to address the various challenges to sustainability. This was particularly evident on large inherited estates where landowners take a paternalistic role. Consequently, retaining such landowners appears to be an important factor in building resilient communities. Although grants still incentivise many landowners to provide public goods, their contributions to all aspects of sustainability could be better rewarded. Government policy should improve the alignment of landowners' and public goals to achieve long-term sustainability in the uplands.

This research study focuses on the connection between types of attachment (levels of anxiety and avoidance in a relationship) and drug addiction. We researched the levels of anxiety and avoidance in drug addicted patients in their relationships with their mothers and fathers, romantic partners and best friends and compared them with the levels of anxiety and avoidance in informants from a control group who were not addicted to drugs. We examined an experimental group of 103 addicted patients receiving treatment in a therapeutic community and 105 informants in a control group. The results of the research confirmed the hypothesis that drug addicted patients manifest significantly higher levels of anxiety and avoidance in relationships with mothers, fathers, romantic partners and best friends in comparison with the control group informants not addicted to drugs. Although the differences in all areas were substantial, illustrating the attachment typology proved to be problematic. While dividing the responses into quadrants does not consider natural variations of the responses, they were taken into account in both of the mentioned scales. We concluded that, in general, the addicted patients in the experimental group had distinctly lower scores in the security of the attachment to their mothers and...