The most common form of female cancer in Sweden is breast cancer and the primary choice of treatment is surgery. Removing a woman's breasts is not just removing a body part but is also strongly linked to the emotional life. This has psychosocial consequences and the reactions will be different depending on how people perceive health and illness. Factors that matter are both personal experiences and cultural factors such as religion, family, and the own standards and values. It is important that a nurse is aware of cultural factors that may influence the perception of care. The aim of this study was to describe whether, and if so how, the health-related psychosocial situation after breast cancer differ between women of different cultural backgrounds. An additional aim was to discuss what the nurse should focus on during and after breast cancer treatment with respect to these differences. The method was a literature study of 12 scientific articles that were analyzed and put together in different themes. The results show that psychological stress is not rare after breast cancer treatment and various factors that influenced this proved to be altered appearance, decreased intimacy, inadequate social support and sense of hopelessness. Women from western countries stated that the altered appearance gave the greatest psychological stress while women from eastern countries had depressive symptoms as a result of inadequate social support and deficiencies in close relationships. The conclusion was that there are both many similarities and many differences among different cultures in terms of the psychosocial situation after breast cancer treatment. To provide an adequate patient care a nurse should have knowledge about these cultural differences, but still treat each patient as an individual and not as a representative of a specific culture.

Chronic illness of a child has an influence over the whole family system. Despite this fact healthy siblings have been overlooked by the majority of research. Some foreign studies declare that this population is in higher risk of developing psychsocial problems. The purpose of this thesis is to conduct a closer study on psychosocial characteristics of the siblings of children with diabetes mellitus type 1. The main concern of the theoretical part is the review of current literature dealing with the topic of siblings of chronically ill child and their families. The conducted research included quantitative and qualitative methods exploring sibling psychosocial problems and prosocial behaviour, self-esteem, siblings attitude towards illness and family functioning. The results stress out the important relationship between sibling adjustment, self-esteem and individual and family characteristics. The results also present the main themes connected with siblings feeling of fear, sadness and anger, with applied coping strategies and perceived rewards and costs of the illness for family. Keywords: siblings, diabetes mellitus type 1, psychosocial situation

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur skolpersonal beskriver att elever görs delaktiga i en process där skolor stängs i syfte att motverka skolsegregation. Underliggande frågeställningar handlar också om hur skolpersonalen beskriver elevernas psykosociala situation och mer ingående hur elever mer konkret ges delaktighet och inflytande att påverka sin situation. Studien och analysen tar stöd i diskursteorin som syftar till att få syn på diskurser som ett specifikt sätt att tala om någonting inom en specifik sfär. Shiers (2001) modell om delaktighet finns också som stöd i analysarbetet. Studiens metod har varit fokusgruppsintervjuer med skolpersonal på de skolor som nu stängs.  I resultatet framkommer tre diskurser i relation till skolpersonalens tal om delaktighet och psykosociala situation. I relation till den psykosociala situationen framkommer ”avsaknad av ett sammanhang” som en diskurs. Att inte veta vart man ska, bristfällig information från ledningen och att inte accepteras i den nya miljön är artikulationer som skolpersonalen vittnar om. I relation till att elever beskrivs få inflytande och delaktighet framkommer både”hopplöshet” och ”förväntningar” som två diskurser av delaktighet. ”Hopplöshet” i relation till att eleverna inte ges inflytande på riktigt och ”förväntningar” i relation delaktighet i ett längre perspektiv. Att lära sig språket, se nya miljöer och möta andra är de aspekter som i förlängningen kan ge elever mer delaktighet i ett vidare perspektiv i livet. / This study aims to examine how school personnel describes that student are made involved in a process where schools are closed to counteract school’s segregation. Underlying issues are also about how the school personnel describes the psychosocial situation of the students and more in-depth how students are made more involved to influence their situation.  The study and the analysis take support in the theory of discourse and refer to see discourses as a specific way to speak of something within a specific sphere. Sheirs (2001) model about participation is also in the work of analysis as a support. The method of the study has been interviews with focus groups which is school personnel from the schools who now are shutting down.  In the result appears three discourses in relation to the school personnel’s speaking about participation and psychosocial situation. In relation to the psychosocial situation appears a"lack of context" as a discourse. Not knowing where to go, lack of information from the management and to not be accepted in the new environment are articulations as the school personnel testifies about. In relation to influence and participation appears both "hopelessness" and "expectations" as two discourses of participation. "Hopelessness" in relation to that the students are not being given influence for real and "expectations" in relation to participation in a longer perspective. To learn the language, see new environments and to meet others are the aspects that by extension could give students more participation ina broader perspective in life.

Lindén.S. En handikappad familj? – en studie om den psykosociala situationen för föräldrar med funktionshindrade barn. Examensarbete i folkhälsovetenskap 20 poäng. Malmö Högskola: Hälsa och Samhälle, 2005Tidigare studier som gjorts på den gruppen pekar mot att föräldrarnas situation är jobbig och ansträngd. Dessvärre är det så att det inte finns något samlat material om den här gruppen trots att de utgör en ganska stor andel av Sveriges befolkning. Föräldrarnas hälsotillstånd har på något vis hamnat i bakgrunden. Syftet med den här studien har varit att kartlägga hur den psykosociala situationen ser ut för dessa föräldrar, om deras sjukskrivningsnivå har påverkats samt i vilken utsträckning föräldrarna delar på ansvaret för barnen. Jag har haft två frågeställningar som utgångspunkt för arbetet:- Hur upplever föräldrarna till funktionshindrade barn sitt psykosociala förhållande?- Hur hanterar de sin situation?Undersökningen är en kvalitativ intervjustudie med hermeneutisk ansats. Teorierna som använts är Aaron Antonovskys KASAM-teori och Robert A. Karaseks Krav/kontrollteori. Det visade sig att de farhågor man kunde skönja från andra studier lite grann kom på skam. Mina informanter var samtliga svenskar, hade bra utbildning och bra inkomst samt levde i socialt stabila miljöer. Visst fanns det problem det kan man inte komma ifrån. Det var oftast mammorna i familjerna som hade det övergripande ansvaret för barnen och det var oftast de som gick ner i arbetstid och lön för att hinna med allt de som behövde hinnas med när man har ett funktionshindrat barn. Deltagarnas hälsa kan man beteckna som god vilket till stor del kan förklaras av att de omgavs av en social trygghet. / Lindén.S. A handicapped family? – a study on the psychosocial situation for parents with disabled children. Master’s thesis in public health 20credits. Malmoe University, Sweden: School of Health and Society, 2005Former studies that have been done on this group show that parent’s situation can be hard and difficult. Unfortunately there are no assembled facts about this group despite they constitute a relatively large proportion on the Swedish population. The parent’s health situation is never really seen and has somehow ended up in the background. The purpose with this study have been to find out how the psychosocial situation are for this kind of parents, if there are sick-listed more than other and in what extent parents share the responsibility for their children. I have had two questions of issue for this survey:- How do these parents experience their psychosocial circumstances?- How do they handle their situation?This survey is a qualitative interview study based on Aaron Antonovskys SOC-theory and Robert A. Karaseks Demand/Control theory. The study show that presentiment from other studies not really come true. The participants were all Swedes; has good education and finance, and they all lives in solid social environments. The do of course has some problem to deal with that is something you can not get away from. Mostly it was the mothers who had the overall responsibility for the children. It was also most of the mothers who cuts work time and salary for manage to do all the things that comes with a disabled child in the family. The participant’s health can be described as good which mostly can be explained on the facts that they lived with social security around them.