Arbetsmarknadens förändringar i form av högre arbetstakt, tillfälliga anställningar och krav på flexibla arbetsvillkor, gör att allt fler upplever stress i arbetslivet. Långvarig stress medför stora hälsorisker för individen. Eftersom många av dagens sjukskrivningar beror på stressrelaterade sjukdomar, såsom depression och utmattning är det viktigt att studera metoder för stresshantering på arbetsplatsen. Beröring i form av massage kan minska stress hos individer samt fungerar som ett komplement i behandlingen för stressrelaterade sjukdomar. Ett fältexperiment med 28 tjänstemän utfördes för att undersöka om en kortvarig massage på arbetstid kunde inverka positivt på den arbetsrelaterade stressen jämfört med en avslappningsövning och vanlig rast. Studien visade signifikant minskning av stressnivån efter massageinterventionen. Resultatet ger en antydan om att upplevelsen av stress går att reducera med hjälp av fysisk beröring. Stickprovets storlek samt förväntnings- effektens inverkan på resultatet diskuteras.

Syftet med studien var att belysa faktorer som påverkar äldre, över 65 år, patienters upplevelse av beröring, dess effekter samt belysa sjuksköterskans upplevelse av att ge beröring. Metoden är en systematisk litteraturstudie, baserad på 15 vetenskapliga artiklar sökta via databaserna Cinahl, Cochrane och sökmotorn Elin@dalarna.Resultatet visade att genus, livserfarenhet, yrkeskompetens hos sjuksköterskan, relationer samt vilken del av kroppen som berördes var faktorer som styrde patientens upplevelse av beröring från sjuksköterskan.Sjuksköterskors upplevelse av att ge beröring visades genom en helhetssyn av patienten, ge bekräftelse, vårda med respekt samt kunna beröra på ett naturligt sätt. Beröring visades ha goda effekter både hos den äldre patienten och sjuksköterskan genom att relationsbanden mellan dem styrktes, minskade sömnproblemen samt lindrade smärta, stress och oro hos den äldre patienten.

Syftet: Syftet med studien var att undersöka vilken betydelse beröring har i vård och omsorgav personer med demenssjukdom. Ett annat syfte var att granska kvalitén av urval och bortfalli de inkluderade artiklarna. Metod: Metoden var en beskrivande litteraturstudie där resultatet baserades på 13vetenskapliga artiklar med kvalitativ och kvantitativ ansats. Litteratursökning genomfördes idatabaserna Pubmed, Medline, Cinahl och Psycinfo. Huvudresultat: Hos personer med demenssjukdom bidrar fysisk beröring till lugn och ro,under och efter behandling somnar många vilket är ett tecken på avslappning och bidrar i sintur till en bättre kvalitet på sömnen i helhet. Fysisk beröring bidrar även till förbättring avvardaglig smärta. Hos personer med beteenderelaterade symtom bör fysisk beröring gesförsiktigt. Under kommunikation och observation och allas individuella behov skall tas varapå. En fysisk handling ger välbefinnande i form av bekräftelse och skapar känslor av blandannat omtänksamhet och välbehag. Oxytocin som är viktiga kombinationer för välbefinnandefrigörs av mänsklig beröring. Slutsats: Majoriteten av de inkluderade artiklarna baseras på personer med demenssjukdomoch resultatet påvisar en positiv reaktion av beröring på flera faktorer. / Aim: To investigate the role of physical touch in the care of people with dementia. The aim was also to examine the quality of the selection method and non-response sample of the included articles. Method: A descriptive literature study based on 13 scientific articles with qualitative and quantitative approach. The literature research was made in the databases PubMed, Medline, Cinahl and Psycinfo. Main Results: In people with dementia, physical touch contributes to peace and quiet. During and after treatment many falls asleep, which is a sign of relaxation and that contributes to a better quality of full sleep. Physical contact also contributes to the improvement of everyday pain.People with behavioral symptoms should be given physical touch gently, during communication and observation and everyone's individual needs must be taken care of. A physical action gives comfort in the form of confirmation. It creates feelings of thoughtfulness and pleasure for example.Oxytocin, that is important for the wellbeing, gets released by human touch. Conclusion: The majorities of the included articles are based on people with dementia and the results appear to show a positive reaction of touch on several factors.

abstract: Touch appears to be an important component for understanding psychological and emotional well-being, as well as the formation and maintenance of interpersonal relationships later in life. While research about touch in relation to these topics is gaining momentum, there is still little evidence on the specific effects and processes that take place when touch is negative or harmful. The current study examined how women who have experienced physical or sexual abuse perceive touch in the context of interpersonal relations and in turn, how these experiences, perceptions and attitudes are related to depressive symptoms. Taking into consideration the significance of interpersonal touch, I speculated that 1) attitudes towards touch would be more negative among women who reported physical or sexual abuse than among women who did not; 2) among women who reported past abuse, increased abuse severity would predict increased current depressive symptoms; and 3) among women who reported past abuse, current attitudes towards touch would mediate the relationship between abuse severity and depressive symptoms. As predicted, results indicated that women who reported physical or sexual abuse had less positive attitudes towards touch than women who did not report any abuse. Echoing prior research, reports of childhood and adult abuse predicted increased depressive symptoms. Finally, for women who reported childhood abuse, Discomfort with Social Touch was a significant partial mediator of depressive symptoms, whereas for women who reported adult abuse, both Desire for More Partner Touch and Discomfort with Social Touch were significant partial mediators of depressive symptoms. Results suggested that negative attitudes towards general social touch, in particular, may play a strong role in mediating depressive symptoms among women who reported abuse. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2015

The purpose of this study is to produce knowledge about when and in what way preschool teachers give children physical contact in the preschools’ daily routine and how the children react to physical contact. Physical touch in preschool is regarded as an important part of the children's human contact, sense of security and learning.  We chose to do a qualitative study which was based on observations and interviews as a method. The empirical study was guided by three research questions: How do preschool staff describe and use physical touch in teaching the children? In which ways do preschool staff affect children physically and do they pay attention to childrens integrity? In which situations do the preschool staff give children physical touch during a work day?  The pedagogues who were interviewed described in their answers about what physical touch means for them and how they use physical touch in the preschool activities. By looking at the observation materials we found a difference between how they gave the boys respectively the girls physical contact in some of the daily routines. The results that came out of the analysis showed that all pedagogues believe that physical contact is extremely important in preschool.

Research shows that physical touch is essential to human well-being. At the same time there is a fear in society about the subject. The preschool curriculum, Lpfö 18, emphasizes that children's integrity must be taken into consideration in parallel with the fact that children should be treated based on their individual needs. Our study is based on examining how educators navigate based on this. The purpose of our research is to investigate how educators talk about physical touch. How do educators reason about which children it is offered to and for what purpose physical touch is given? The study consists of qualitative interviews with five educators. The empirical analysis is analyzed from a care-ethical perspective as well as an intersectional perspective in order to document similarities and differences from the educators' stories. The result shows that the concept of physical touch creates a fear among educators of violating the child's integrity, which can result in a taboo perspective. Despite this, educators use physical touch as a tool to increase the child's well-being. They find the benefits to be greater than their fear. The educators state that the purpose of physical touch is to treat the child well, give love and to guide the child. It is mainly children who give clear signals of being in need of physical touch who are given access to the educator's closeness. Based on the results and from an intersectional perspective, our conclusion is that younger girls are the category that get the most physical touch. Although physical touch is seen as a natural element in the profession, the meaning of physical touch is rarely discussed among educators.

Den fysiska beröringen sker dagligen i det pedagogiska arbetet i fritidshemmet utan att vi pratar om det. Det sker närsomhelst i olika situationer såsom tröstning, uppmuntran eller konflikt. I samhället finns det en diskurs kring fysisk beröring överlag, om den är lämplig inom det pedagogiska arbetet eller hur läraren ska förhålla sig till den. Denna studie undersöker hur lärare i fritidshemmet uppfattar och förhåller sig till fysisk beröring. Frågeställningar är, hur uppfattar läraren den fysiska beröringen i fritidshemmet samt hur förhåller sig lärare till den fysiska beröringen i fritidshemmet mellan lärare och elev. Syftet och frågeställningarna kopplas till teorin fenomenologi. Kännetecknande för denna teori är upplevelsen av ett fenomen ur olika perspektiv. Fenomenet i denna studie är fysisk beröring. I syfte att synliggöra fenomenet används en kvalitativ studie med semistrukturerade intervjuer. I studien deltar nio legitimerade lärare i fritidshem vilka är fördelade på olika arbetsplatser i Hallands län. Det empiriska materialet transkriberas och analyseras genom Gills metod. Resultatet visar på hur lärare använder pedagogiska strategier för att skapa relationer med eleverna. Dock är strategierna påverkade av den rädsla många lärare, framför allt de manliga, känner inför den fysiska beröringen. Rädslan bygger på hur andra vuxna i omgivningen uppfattar den fysiska beröringen. Detta leder till att läraren inte tar hänsyn till elevens pedagogiska behov, utan fokuserar på samhällets normer. På detta sätt skapas olika förhållningssätt till den fysiska beröringen. / The physical touch takes place daily in the educational work in the leisure center without us talking about it. It happens at any time in different situations such as comfort, encouragement or conflict. In society there is a discourse around physical touch in general, if it is appropriate within it the pedagogical work or how the teacher should relate to it. This study examines how teachers in the leisure center perceives and relates to physical touch. Questions are, how perceive the teacher the physical touch in the after-school center and how teachers relate to the physical the touch in the leisure center between teacher and student. The purpose and questions are linked to the theory of phenomenology. Characteristic of this theory is the experience of a phenomenon from different perspectives. The phenomenon in this study is physical touch. In order to make the phenomenon visible, a qualitative study with semi-structured interviews is used. In the study, nine certified teachers in leisure centers who are distributed in different workplaces participate in the study Halland County. The empirical material is transcribed and analyzed using Gill's method. The results show how teachers use pedagogical strategies to create relationships with the students. However, the strategies are influenced by the fear many teachers, especially the male ones, feel before the physical touch. The fear is based on how other adults in the environment perceives the physical touch. This leads to the teacher not taking the student's into account educational needs, but focuses on society's norms. In this way, different are created approach to the physical touch.