The overall objective of the thesis was to investigate aspects of mental health among Swedish Sami reindeer herders and to deepen the understanding of the experience of the living conditions of young Sami reindeer-herding men. Theories of intersectionality, organisational culture and acculturation were used. Methods A questionnaire covering different aspects of mental health was distributed to the Sami population, including the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test, selected parts of the Attitudes Towards Suicide questionnaire (ATTS) and the Job Control Questionnaire (JCQ). 15 interviews with young male reindeer-herders were conducted and analysed according to qualitative content analysis. Results A higher load of anxiety and depression was found in the Sami population, most evident regarding anxiety and among middle aged reindeer-herding men. Regarding alcohol risk consumption reindeer-herding Sami do not in general drink more than a geographically matched reference population, but reindeer-herding men reported a higher proportion of hazardous drinkers, and of teetotallers and periodic drinkers. The reindeer-herding population reported significantly higher exposure to suicide and suicidal behaviour among significant others. Reindeer-herds also reported higher prevalence of different types of suicidal problems. The main theme that emerged in qualitative analysis was ‘Being a young reindeer herder means so many (impossible) dreams and conditions’, and the five subthemes were ‘Being inside or outside is a question of identity’, ‘There is a paradox between being free/unfree’, ‘An experience of different threats and a feeling of powerlessness’, ‘Specific norms for how a ‘real’ reindeer-herder should be’ and ‘The different impacts and meanings of relations’. Conclusions The thesis hypothesizes that the reindeer-herding right as an including, excluding and enclosing historically induced border plays an important part when trying to understand the mental health problems in the group. At present, the situation within reindeer-herding is strained because of practical obstacles and feelings of unfairness and uninfluencability. Furthermore, lack of social support, except from the closest part of the family, and experiences of multi-layered conflicts. This – together with norms of reindeer-herding and reindeer-herders that e.g. say that the reindeer herder is a man who doesn’t show weakness – plays a role in the present mental health problems of the Swedish reindeer-herding population. This applies especially to young and middle-aged reindeer-herding men. / Mental health among reindeer-herding Sami in Sweden

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2002. / Härtill 5 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2007. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Karolinska institutet, 2006. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

<p>In this paper the authors are focusing on people that work in psychiatric acute care. How do they identify the individual that is in most need of acute care? How do they judge in this kind of cases? <strong></strong></p><p>   The foundation in this study is in the qualitative method. The material to this study has been collected by doing qualitative interviews with six people in different professions and positions in psychiatric acute care.</p><p>   The material that we collected from these six qualitative interviews has been analysed with help from Sherif’s and Hovland’s (1961) Social judgement theory. The theory describes people’s judgement based on certain criterions and how it affects them. </p><p>   It has been noticed that the individuals who asses first acute care are usually the ones that has a suicidal behavior. The resources are decreasing while the need for psychiatric acute care is increasing. The personell have to make decisions about which individual that are in most need of acute care<strong>. </strong>Their judgments are very important for the indiviuals in need of immediate care. This judgement can be depending on which individual who is doing the judgemet. This paper has given us comprehension for the immortance of good individual properties for doing judgements, and that they are made in several positions.</p>

Bakgrund: Ambulanssjuksköterskans roll innebär bland annat att bedöma en patients tillstånd. I bakgrunden presenteras bedömningsprocessen ur ett psykiatriskt, prehospitalt och kombinationen prehospitalt/psykiatriskt perspektiv. Syfte: Syftet är att belysa på vilka grunder ambulanssjuksköterskor gör sina bedömningar i mötet med personer som kan antas lida av akut psykisk ohälsa. Metod: Studien grundar sig på en kvalitativ forskningsansats. Data har insamlats genom semistrukturerade intervjuer och har analyserats med hjälp av kvalitativa innehållsanalys som Granheim och Lundman beskriver den. Resultat: Utgörs av tre huvudkategorier; Patienten i fokus för bedömningen, Omgivningens roll samt Vårdarens tillvägagångssätt Diskussion: Resultatet har diskuterats utifrån andra studerade arbetssätt och tankeprocesser bakom en bedömning. Vidare lyfts reflektioner kring den teoretiska referensramens huvudbegrepp; Miljö, Hälsa, Människosyn och mötet med patienten. / Background: One of the ambulance nurses many responsibilities is assessing the patients’ current health situation. The background presents how this process may manifest itself in the nursing field of pre-hospital care, psychiatry and the combination of pre-hospital and psychiatry.  Aim: The present study aims to illuminate on what basis the ambulance nurse make their assessing decisions in the encounter with patients that might suffer from an acute psychiatric event Methods: Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and have been analysed using the qualitative content analysis as described by Graneheim and Lundman. Results: Three main categories emerged: Assessing the patient, The role of the environment and The nurses approach. Discussions: The results have been discussed comparing other known assessment situations and cognitive models. Reflections from the result, seen through the perspective of the theoretical frameworks, are also presented.

An investigation in how the psychiatric care of women has been portrayed in four scandinavian novels written by women in and around the turn of the century.

No description available.

Bakgrund: Bipolär sjukdom är en kronisk psykiatrisk sjukdom som innefattar maniska, hypomaniska, och depressiva episoder. Fler kvinnor än män drabbas av sjukdomen. Med en vardag som i en känslomässig berg- och dalbana står patienterna inför flera utmaningar och självmordsrisken är hög. Okunskap om sjukdomen i samhället försvårar situationen för patienterna och tidigare forskning visar att närstående och sjuksköterskan är ett viktigt stöd som kan bidra med välbefinnande.   Syfte: För att få en ökad förståelse och inblick i kvinnornas liv var syftet med studien att belysa kvinnors upplevelse av att leva med bipolär sjukdom. Metod: För att besvara syftet användes en kvalitativ ansats som utgick från fem självbiografier. Självbiografierna analyserades med en kvalitativ manifest analysprocess. Resultat: Kvinnorna upplevde lidande i sin maktlöshet att hantera sjukdomen och hur sjukdomen påverkade livet. Kvinnorna upplevde att de inte fick någon förståelse från omgivningen för sina ipulsiva beslut i maniska och hypomaniska episoder eller sina isolerande och negativa perioder under depressionens episoder. Omgivningen har för lite kunskap om bipolär sjukdom.  Välbefinnande och energi hämtade kvinnorna genom närståendes stöd och de kände en trygghet i att ha den psykiatriska sjukvården att tillgå.  Slutsatser:Kvinnornas livsvärld med bipolär sjukdom är en ständig kamp för att minska lidande och uppnå välbefinnande. Det är främst vardagen som innebär den största utmaningen. För att bemötandet inom sjukvården ska optimeras för patienterna och att deras närstående på bästa möjliga sätt ska kunna finnas som stöd, krävs ökad och utvecklande kunskap för sjuksköterskan och omgivningen om sjukdomen.

Parents experience many stressful situations when their child is ill and needs medical care, irrespective of the child’s age, diagnosis or the severity of the illness. Poor sleep quality and negative mood decrease the parents’ ability to sustain attention and focus, to care for their ill child, and to cope with the challenges they face. The overall aim of this thesis was to evaluate sleep, mood, cortisol response, and sense of coherence (SOC) in parents caring for children in need of medical care, and to identify factors that may influence parents’ sleep. This thesis includes four original studies; two of these are quantitative, prospective, descriptive and comparative studies including parents (n=82) accommodated in six pediatric wards with their ill child, using questionnaires and sleep logs to measure sleep, mood and SOC, and saliva cortisol to measure cortisol response. A follow-up was performed four weeks later at home, after hospital discharge. The other two studies are qualitative, inductive and explorative interview studies, including parents (n=12) staying overnight with their preterm and/or ill infant in three neonatal intensive care units, and parents (n=15) with a child receiving hospital-based home care in two pediatric outpatient clinics. The interviews were analyzed with a phenomenographic method. Being together with one’s family seems beneficial for sleep and may decrease stress. The ability to stay with the child, in the hospital or at home, was highly appreciated by the parents. When caring for a child with illness, parents’ sleep quality was sufficient in the hospital; however, sleep quality improved further (p&lt;0.05) at home after discharge. The parents reported frequent nocturnal awakenings in the hospital caused by the child, medical treatment and hospital staff. Concern and anxiety about the child’s health, and uncertainty about the future were stressors affecting the parents’ sleep and mood negatively. The parents had lower (p=0.01) morning awakening cortisol levels in the pediatric ward compared to at home, and parents accommodated for more than one night had lower (p&lt;0.05) post-awakening cortisol levels compared to parents staying their first night. The findings of this thesis conclude that being together as a family is important for the parents’ sleep. The ability to be accommodated in the hospital and gather the family around the child may have given the parents time for relaxation and recovery, that in turn may lead to a less stressful hospital stay. When it is beneficial for the child, the whole family should be included in the pediatric care. Moreover, pediatric nurses must acknowledge parents’ sleep, in hospital and at home. Medical treatment and care at night should be scheduled and sleep promoted for the parents in order to maintain health and well-being in the family. / <p>The electronic version of the thesis is a corrected version of the printed thesis.</p><p>This thesis has also been funded by <em>Barnklinikens 60-årsfond, Filip SchelinsStiftelse, Riksföreningen för barnsjuksköterskor</em> and <em>Synskadades Riksförbund (Lyckopenningen)</em>.</p>