STUDY OBJECTIVE: To explore individual and social factors that could predict health care utilisation and medication among people with chronic pain in an unselected population. DESIGN: A mailed survey with questions about pain and mental symptoms, disability, self care action, visits to health care providers, and medication. SETTING: General populations in two Swedish primary health care (PHC) districts. Medical care was given in a state health system. PARTICIPANTS: A random sample (from the population register) of 15% of the population aged 25-74 (n = 1806). MAIN RESULTS: Among people reporting chronic pain 45.7% (compared with 29.8 of non-chronic pain persons, p < 0.05) consulted a physician and 7.2% (compared with 1.2%, p < 0.05) a physiotherapist during three months. Primary health care was the most frequent care provider. High pain intensity, aging, depression, ethnicity, and socioeconomic level had the greatest impact on physician consultations. Alternative care, used by 5.9%, was associated with high pain intensity and self care. Use of self care was influenced by high pain intensity, regular physical activity, and ethnicity. Alternative care and self care did not imply lower use of conventional health care. Women reporting chronic pain consumed more analgesics and sedatives than corresponding men. Besides female gender, high pain intensity, insomnia, physician consultation, social network, and self care action helped to explain medication with analgesics. Use of herbal remedies and ointments correlated to self care action, visit to an alternative therapist, high pain intensity, and socioeconomic level. CONCLUSIONS: The presence of chronic pain has an impressive impact on primary health care and medication. Various therapeutic actions are common and are partly overlapping. The use of health care among people with chronic pain depends above all on pain perception and intensity of pain but is also affected by ethnicity, age, socioeconomic level, and depressive symptoms. Among people with chronic pain use of analgesics is common in contrast with other types of pain relief (acupuncture, physiotherapy) suitable for treating chronic pain symptoms.

<p><strong>BAKGRUND:</strong> Sömn är ett regelbundet återkommande tillstånd som är livsnödvändigt för att kroppen skall återhämta sig på ett korrekt vis. Personer med insomni och sömnapné är två patientgrupper som lider utav långvariga sömnproblem. Orsakerna till den dåliga sömnen kan vara många, och därför är det viktigt för sjuksköterskan att vara lyhörd och kunna stötta patienterna med hjälp av sina kunskaper gällande de åtgärder och behandlingar som finns att använda sig av.</p><p><strong>SYFTE:</strong> Syftet med denna litteraturöversikt var att belysa vilka åtgärder sjuksköterskan kan tillämpa för att stödja patienter med långvariga sömnproblem.</p><p><strong>METOD:</strong> En litteraturöversikt där 13 vetenskapliga artiklar granskades och analyserades. Fribergs (2006) modell för litteraturöversikter användes vid datainsamling och analysförfarande.</p><p><strong>RESULTAT:</strong> Fyra kategorier framkom ur analysen av de vetenskapliga artiklarna: <em>egenvård, akupunktur, kognitiv beteendeterapi, </em>och <em>stödprogram.</em> Dessa kategorier gör det möjligt för sjuksköterskan att tillämpa stöd till patienterna. Hos patienter med långvariga sömnproblem har de stödjande åtgärderna visat sig ge ökad sömn- och livskvalitet. <em></em></p><p><strong>SLUTSATS: </strong>Forskningen kring de långvariga sömnproblemen har ökat under de senaste åren men trots det finns det bristande kunskap om hur sjuksköterskan kan ge de behandlingar och det stödet som patienterna med insomni och sömnapné behöver.</p> / <p><strong>BACKGROUND:</strong> Sleep is a periodic state which is essential for the body to recover in a proper manner. Insomnia and people with sleep apnea are two groups of patients out of long-term sleep problems. There are many causes of poor sleep, and that’s why there are so important for the nurse to be sensitive and support patients through their knowledge concerning the actions and processes that exist to use.</p><p><strong>AIM:</strong> The purpose of this literature review was to illustrate which measures nurse can apply to support patients with long-term sleep problems.</p><p><strong>METHOD:</strong> A literature overview, including 13 reviewed and analyzed articles. Fribergs (2006) model for literature overview were used in data collection and analysis procedure.</p><p><strong>RESULT:</strong> Four categories emerged from the analysis of the articles: <em>self-care, acupuncture, cognitive behavioral therapy, </em>and<em> support program</em>. These categories make it enable for the nurse to apply support to patients who suffer out of prolonged sleeping problem. Patients perceive that both their sleep and quality of life improves with the help of different treatments.</p><p><strong>CONCLUSION:</strong> Research into long-term sleep problems has increased in recent years. Despite this, there is a lack of knowledge about how nurse can provide treatment and support for patients with insomnia and sleep apnea.</p>

The overall aim was to explore the experiences of sexual risk taking among Chlamydia Trachomatis positive (CT+), HIV positive (HIV+), and HIV tested young women and men. The specific aims were to explore, from a gender perspective, the course of events, the norms, considerations and emotions involved in sexual risk taking in CT+, explore the perception of sexual risk taking in HIV+ youth, and their understanding of why they caught HIV and look at how the Law of Communicable Diseases Act impacts their sexuality. Moreover, to investigate why young adults test for HIV, how they construct the HIV risk, and what implications testing has for them. 42 informants between 17-24 years of age were recruited from a youth clinic in Umeå and from three infection clinics for HIV patients in Sweden. In depth interviews and focus group interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analyzed according to a Grounded Theory approach. The finding revealed that behind sexual risk taking, there was a drive to go steady, where lust and trust guided if sex would take place. In one-night stands women were expected to be less forward compared with men. We found an uneven responsibility concerning condom use where men expected women to be "condom promoters". By catching CT, women experienced guilt, while men felt content through knowing "the source of contamination". Among the HIV+ youth, socio-cultural factors such as; lack of adult supervision, naivité, love, alcohol, drugs, the macho ideal and cultures of silence blinded the informants to the risks and made them vulnerable. By grouping narratives according to degree of consensus in sexual encounters, this demonstrated that sexual risks happened in a context of gendered power relations where the informants had varied agency. The Law of Communicable Diseases Act implied both support and burden for these HIV+ youth. A lot of responsibility was put on them and to be able to handle the infromation duty they tried to switch off lust, switch off the disease, or balance lust and obedience. Among the HIV tested youth, HIV was seen a distant threat. Many had event-driven reasons for testing for HIV; multiple partners being one. Risk zones, like bars were perceived to be a milieu that often was expected to include one-night stands. Responsibility for testing was a gendered issue; "natural" for women, while men rather escaped from responsibility and had a testing resistance. Receiving a "green card" confirmed healthiness and provided relief, and made the informants felt "clean". They could restart with new ambitious, including reconsidering risk. The findings can be used in public health and in health care sectors that work with young people. We present suggestions on how to decrease the spread of STIs: To implement how men could play an equal part in sexual and reproductive health. Promote general CT screening for men. Liberal HIV testing among both young women and men. Promote safer sex behaviour from the uninfected youth, especially focusing on men??. Consider the role of gender and social background in the context of risky behaviours. Give lots of positive rewards concerning HIV disclosure to diminish the risk for HIV transmission.

Objectives. Ascertain if there has been a secular trend in 3-months prevalence of casually reported back pain. Evaluate if such back pain predicts concurrent health as well as future sick leave, disability pension, hospitalization and survival. Study differences in diagnostic assessment and labelling between physicians. Evaluate if a comprehensive manual therapy programme reduces sickness absence. Materials and methods. Combined population samples from 1973 to 2003 with a total of 12,891 observations with self-reported back pain and covariates. 7,074 of these individuals were followed for an average of 8.5 years and outcomes were self-reported health as well as official register data on sick leave, disability pension, hospitalisation and mortality. The Gotland Low Back Pain Study, a randomised controlled trial with participation of two general practitioners and two orthopaedic surgeons treating 160 patients with acute/subacute low back pain, with 10 weeks diagnostic evaluation and treatment and a two-year follow up. Results. Back pain prevalence increased 16% per ten years (OR 1.16, 95%CI 1.11-1.22). Back pain was negatively associated with self-rated health (p&lt;0.0001), increased the risk of disability pension (p&lt;0.002), and hospital admissions (p&lt;0.0005), but not number of days in hospital, sick leave or mortality. General practitioners used terms from manual medicine and reported more pseudoradicular pain, while orthopaedic surgeons used non-specific pain labels, reported more true radicular pain and used more x-ray examinations. Among those on sick leave at baseline, manual therapy patients showed faster return to work (HR 1.62, 95%CI 1.006–2.60) and a lower point-prevalence of sick leave than reference patients at end of treatment period (ratio 0.35, 95% CI 0.13–0.97) but not after two years. Conclusions. There was a strong secular trend towards increase in self-reported back pain from 1973 to 2003. Such pain had a negative effect on some of the health outcomes and does not appear to be harmless. Physicians from different specialities labelled the condition differently. The manual therapy programme proved to be more effective than the established treatment regarding return to work.

Objectives. To study medication utilization and adherence to prescribed therapy in a female population in central Sweden. To study usage of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in this population and to assess how HRT users compare to non-users regarding symptom reporting, general health and other variables. To evaluate symptom prevalence adjusted for potential symptom affecting variables. Material and methods. A cross-sectional postal questionnaire study was performed in 1995 in seven counties in central Sweden. A questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 4,200 women aged 35-64, of whom 2,991 responded (71.2%). The questionnaire contained questions on psycho-socio-economic background, quality of life, self-reported health, height and weight, climacteric symptom prevalence, and menopausal status and symptoms. It also comprised questions on medication prescribed during the past year. Results. 40% used prescribed medication and 12% took four drugs or more. Age, educational level, self-rated health, and BMI remained significantly correlated to drug use in multivariate analysis. Adherence ranged from 15%-98% depending on age, a scheduled check-up, perceived importance of medication, concern about medication, taking cardiovascular and respiratory disease drugs. The highest adherence was found for hormonal medication the lowest for musculoskeletal medication. HRT was used by 15% of the women. 13 % used other symptom relieving therapy. HRT users reported higher score of vasomotor symptoms, except for sweating during the daytime. Prevalence of general symptoms did not necessarily increase with age. Especially symptoms related to stress-tension-depression decreased with age. Four different symptom prevalence patterns were found. Conclusions. Age, health status, educational level and body mass index (BMI) appear to affect drug use. Adherence to therapy is highest among elderly women who regard their medication as important and have a scheduled check-up. HRT relieves some vasomotor symptoms but does not affect other symptoms or self-rated health. Prevalence of symptoms related to Stress-tension-depression appears to decrease with age.

Introduktion: Multipel Skleros [MS] är en autoimmun nervsjukdom som påverkar kroppens alla funktioner, genom att nervernas ytskikt, myelin, skadas och bryts ner. Orsaken är okänd och sjukdomen anses vara kronisk, då det i nuläget inte finns något botemedel. Sjukdomen upplevs olika av alla och genom att belysa erfarenheter hos personer med MS, kan sjuksköterskan få en större förståelse för personers situationer och på så vis kunna anpassa vården efter olika behov. Syfte: Litteraturstudiens syfte var att belysa personers erfarenheter av Multipel Skleros. Metod: Litteraturstudien grundades på Polit och Becks (2017) niostegs flödesschema. Sökningar genomfördes i databaserna Cinahl och PubMed. Urval i tre steg och databearbetning genomfördes, vilket resulterade i 15 kvalitativa artiklar. Resultat: Fyra huvudkategorier identifierades: MS – en känslofylld resa, Stöd &amp; relationer, Planera för att vara aktiv och Att bilda familj – från ett kvinnligt perspektiv. Slutsats: Personer med MS upplevde att vägen fram till diagnos var lång och fylld av många olika känslor. Personer med MS ansåg att sjukdomen innebar en ständig kamp att anpassa sig till det vardagliga livet, där stöd och sociala relationer var en stor och viktig del.

Sammanfattning Bakgrund Tal- och språksvårigheter är inte ovanligt bland barn i förskoleåldern. För att få hjälp med dessa svårigheter krävs en logopedisk bedömning. På grund av långa väntetider kan barn tvingas vänta länge på logopediska insatser. Detta har resulterat i flera utvecklingsarbeten inom barnlogopedi runt om i Sverige. Syftet med dessa utvecklingsarbeten är bland annat att effektivisera vården för att barn med språkliga svårigheter ska få tillgång till tidiga insatser. Vid Norrlands universitetssjukhus utgör en språkstimulansföreläsning en del av utvecklingsarbetet men den har ännu inte blivit utvärderad, vilket motiverar denna studie. Syfte Syftet med denna studie var att utvärdera en del av utvecklingsarbetet inom barnlogopedi som infördes under början av 2022 vid logopedmottagningen i Umeå. Detta genom att undersöka vårdnadshavares upplevelser av språkstimulansföreläsningen som är obligatorisk för vidare logopediska insatser. Metod Vårdnadshavares upplevelser undersöktes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med 11 deltagare. Utöver detta användes en webbenkät för att vidare undersöka vårdnadshavares upplevelser av föreläsningen. Webbenkäten besvarades av 42 vårdnadshavare. Samtliga intervjuer transkriberades för att sedan analyseras enligt kvalitativ innehållsanalys tillsammans med svaren från webbenkäten. Resultat Innehållsanalysen för intervjuerna resulterade i fem teman; innehåll, utförande, känslomässiga intryck, resultat och följder och förbättringsförslag. Innehållsanalysen av webbenkäten resulterade i tre teman; styrkor, följder och förbättringsförslag. Deltagarna lyfte både föreläsningens styrkor och nackdelar. Deltagarna var sammantaget nöjda med föreläsningen och framförde förbättringsförslag främst gällande föreläsningens innehåll men även dess utförande. Slutsats Vårdnadshavarna upplevde föreläsningen som informativ och ansåg att den innehöll väsentlig information inför vidare logopediska insatser. Författarna framför förbättringsförslag grundande i deltagarnas upplevelser. Detta med förhoppning om att vidareutveckla det påbörjade arbetet vid Norrlands universitetssjukhus.

Objectives. The aim of this thesis was to study the prognosis, health care utilization and health situation in stroke patients, and informal caregiver burden during the first post-stroke year. Material and methods. 390 patients, 65 years or older, discharged from hospital after a stroke, were followed with repeated patient interviews, patient record and register data, and hospital staff and informal caregiver questionnaires. Results. Prognosis assessments performed by hospital staff at discharge regarding the course of events during the following year were highly accurate and were mainly influenced by the patient’s pre- and post-morbid state. The risk of dying or having a new stroke decreased rapidly during the early post-morbid phase. Health care utilization, in hospitals as well as in primary health care, and municipal social service support was considerably higher after the stroke than before, but the utilization of services was lower than previously reported. Health problem prevalence according to interview and record scrutiny was modest, peaked early after discharge and then declined. Support from informal caregivers increased significantly after discharge and remained high during the first post-stroke year. The support given was mainly determined by patient functional ability, distance to patient, relation to patient, municipal social service support provided, and patient sex. The informal caregivers reported considerable strain and burden, with significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than the stroke patients. Moreover, there was a parallel between the patient’s and the caregiver’s situation regarding anxiety, emotional and social situation, and home, social and outdoor activities. Conclusion. Hospital staff prognosis assessments of patient outcomes during the next year were highly accurate. Risk of recurrence and mortality, and health problem prevalence was high in the early post-stroke period, and than declined. Health care utilization and municipality social support increased over time. Informal caregivers reported considerable strain and burden.

Depression is a common mental health problem in primary health care. One third of the Swedish population is expected to experience depression at some point in their lives. The understanding of depression has expanded, both from a lay and primary health care perspective. The number of persons considering themselves as depressed, receiving the diagnosis, and getting treatment for it has increased steadily over the last decades. Unchanged, however, is that depression is diagnosed twice as often in women as in men, while twice as many men as women commit suicide. These gender differences appear in adolescence. In earlier research biomedical, psychological, and social-cultural explanations of gender differences have been discussed. Patient’s own perspectives have more seldom stood in focus, and men’s narratives in particular are still scarce. In this thesis, gender, i.e. how to be a woman or a man, is considered as a construct, formed and negotiated in social interaction. The aim of the study is to explore the gendered face of depression from a patient perspective: How is depression expressed and explained by patients in primary health care, by women and men, adults and adolescents? How are depressed women and men portrayed in the media? How do patient and media accounts of depression compare with the perspective offered in medical research articles? Method and material The analyses are based on data from three different sources: patient narratives, newspaper portrayals and scientific medical articles. – 37 in-depth interviews were undertaken with primary health care patients diagnosed with depression. Informants were chosen to include both men and women, grown-ups (Studies I + II) and young adults (Study V) of varying occupational and social class backgrounds. Data were analyzed according to grounded theory. – 26 articles portraying lay informants with depression (Study III) were drawn from three major Swedish daily newspapers by a search of database Mediearkivet 2002. The articles were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. –82 scientific articles concerning depression in relation to gender were identified in a PubMed search 2002. The understanding of depression in these articles was explored and compared with findings in the grown-up patient narratives and in the media portrayals by means of discourse analysis (Study IV). Findings Study I captured women’s and men’s formulations of their experiences of depression. To be marked with demands constituted a central experience for both women and men, but the outward manifestations differed in relation to gender as well as to class. Home and work had different priority. Men talked more about physical distress (often chest pain) than about emotions. Women readily verbalized emotional distress – shame and guilt – while physical symptoms were vague and secondary (often about the stomach). Men dealt with insecurity by aggrandizing their previous competence, women by self-effacement. Study II disclosed gendered trajectories into depression. Four symbolic illness narratives were identified: struck by lightning, nagging darkness, blackout and slowly suffocating. Most of the men considered their bodies suddenly “struck” by external circumstances beyond their control. The stories of women in the study were more diverse, reflecting all four illness narratives. However, the women had a tendency to blame their own personality and to describe depression as insidious and originating from the inside. The women expressed feelings of guilt and shame but also conveyed a personal responsibility and concern with relationships. Study III identified four themes in media portrayals of depression: displaying a successful facade, experiencing a cracking facade, losing and regaining control and explaining the illness. The mediated image of depression both upheld and challenged traditional gender stereotypes. The women’s stories were more detailed, relational, emotionally oriented and embodied. The portrayal of men was less emotional and expressive, and described a more dramatic onset of depression. Study IV revealed gaps in how depression in relation to gender is understood by the patients, the media, and the medical research establishment. There were differences in recognition, in understanding of the reasons, and in contextualization of depression. Although women and men described different symptoms and reasons for falling ill, in scientific articles these gendered differences were conceptualized mainly in terms of hormones and other biological markers. Study V elucidated the impact of gender on adolescent depression. The young women and men were all striving to be normal, influenced by demanding media images, confronted by identity trouble, and overwhelmed by feelings. They had dreams of an ordinary family and described normative expectations. Getting a safety net of friends and other adults was a way out. Both the young women and men were eager to communicate their distress when given the opportunity. This seemed especially important to some of the young men, who in talking about their emotional problems transgressed gender norms. Conclusions Patient perspectives enrich the understanding of gendered expressions of depression by making visible transgressions of and breaks with stereotype gender norms. Gender awareness is an important key in clinical consultation. To recognize gendered narratives of illness might have a salutary potential, making depression more visible among men, and relieving self-blame among women. By re-evaluating restrictive gender patterns, the clinician might encourage development of healthier practices of how to be a man or a woman, a development especially important for adolescents. An integrated model for understanding biological, gender and cultural aspects of depression has yet to be developed. As general practitioners we have a unique possibility to see and to study the whole individual in her social and cultural context.

The aim of this thesis was to explore the features of asymptomatic bacteriuria (ASB) in elderly people living in the community, and to seek diagnostic tools to discriminate between ASB and symptomatic urinary tract infection (UTI). All men and women aged 80 and over living in an urban district of Falun, Sweden, were invited to participate. Urine samples were obtained together with information on symptoms and on health indicators. The same cohort was surveyed again after 6 and 18 months. Urinary cytokines were analysed in 16 patients with UTI, in 24 subjects with ASB and in 20 negative controls. ASB occurred at baseline in 19.0% of women and 9.4% of men, and was found at least once in 36.9% of women and in 20.2% of men. ASB in women was associated with reduced mobility and urge urinary incontinence. Of those with ASB at baseline, 60% still had bacteriuria at 6 and 18 months, but among those with repeated findings of ASB with E. coli, only 40% had the same bacterial strain after 18 months. In women, the risk of developing a UTI within 24 months was higher among those with ASB at baseline than in those without. Urinary levels of cytokines (CXCL1, CXCL8 and IL-6) and leukocyte esterase were higher in patients with UTI than in patients with ASB. There is convincing evidence that ASB is harmless and should not be treated with antibiotics. However, such treatment is still often given, thereby unnecessarily contributing to the increased number of bacteria resistant to common antibiotics. This study confirms the high prevalence of ASB in elderly people living in the community. In order not to be misled by a urinary test showing bacteria, it is important to restrict urinary testing for bacteria to patients where there is a suspicion of UTI. In elderly patients with diffuse symptoms or in patients who are unable to communicate their symptoms, further diagnostic help could possibly be obtained by evaluating the urinary levels of leukocyte esterase and/or IL-6.