Bakgrund: Personal inom hälso- och sjukvården ska “beakta ett barns behov av information, råd och stöd” när ett barns förälder eller annan vuxen i barnets närhet lider av eller drabbas av sjukdom, skada, beroende eller vid dödsfall. Barn i familjer där minst en förälder har ett missbruk eller beroende löper större risk att utsättas för fysiskt och psykiskt våld. Barn som växer upp under sådana förhållanden löper även en ökad risk att själva utveckla beroendeproblematik. Information och stöd kan vara avgörande för deras framtida hälsa. Syfte: Att undersöka vilken kunskap och vilka erfarenheter sjuksköterskor verksamma inom beroendepsykiatrin har av att uppmärksamma om det finns barn i patientens närhet som är i behov av information och stöd, samt vilka hindrande respektive främjande faktorer som finns för att kunna tillgodose detta behov. Metod: Sex sjuksköterskor deltog i individuella intervjuer. Intervjuerna analyserades med manifest innehållsanalys. Resultat: Samtliga respondenter uppgav att de alltid tillfrågar sina patienter om det finns barn i deras närhet. De främjande faktorer som har framkommit är att det hos sjuksköterskorna fanns en vilja till förbättring och utveckling i verksamheten samt att barnen uppmärksammas. De hindrande faktorerna beskrivs vara miljön inom beroendepsykiatrin, sjuksköterskornas utbildningsläge, olika rädslor samt viss tidsbrist. Slutsats: Om en strukturerad handlingsplan för att stödja och informera barnen fanns att tillgå skulle detta tillsammans med det engagemang som redan finns hos sjuksköterskorna kunna leda till ett förbättrat stöd till de barn som lever tillsammans med en vuxen med missbruksproblematik. / Background: Staff within the Swedish health care should “consider a child’s need of information, advice and support when the child’s parent or other adult in the child’s vicinity suffers from illness, injury, addiction or death”. Children in families where one parent suffers from substance addiction or abuse are at greater risk of being exposed to physical and psychological violence. Children who grow up under those circumstances are also at greater risk of developing addiction problems. Information and support may be vital for their future quality of life. Aim: To examine the knowledge and experiences nurses working in the field of addicition psychiatry have regarding inquiring about whether there are children close to their patient who are in need of information, support, and also what impeding and promoting factors they experience in regards to providing that information and support to the child. Methods: Six nurses participated in individual interviews. The interview results was analyzed using a manifest content analysis. Results: All of the nurses said that they always ask their patients if they have children among them. The promoting factors are their will to improve and development of the business and that they pay attention to the children. The impeding factors are described as the environment within the psychiatry, the nurses education, different fears and a lack of time. Conclusions: If a structured plan to support and inform the children were available, together with the commitment the nurses have expressed, could lead to an improved support for children living with an adult with substance abuse problems.

Having ratified the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child), the Swedish government and its authorities are responsible towards their young citizens to guarantee them care, protection and to be put first. In addition, children have a right to participation in processes and decisions which affect them. Especially in situations where the child is in need of protection. In research, children´s protection and children´s participation has been investigated as two separate, and often opposing rights, and the perception of children has in many regards been an ambivalent one. This study is focusing on the perception of the child and their participation in their welfare using two perspectives that splits the perception of the child: Children as subjects of rights and children as objects of care. The study investigates the perceptions of children and their participation in family therapy at Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (BUP) and family treatment at the municipal Social Services. Family therapy/treatment is a treatment aimed to gather the family to solve their common problems based on the system theory that perceive the family as a system. Through eight qualitative interviews with therapists and social workers, the study investigates the respondents own perceptions. The study finds that both the perception of the child as subjects of rights and as objects of care is found both at BUP and at the Social Service, although the perception of children as subjects of rights is more clear at the BUP and the perception of children as objects of care more clear at the Social Services. A discovery is that the Social services is more clearly using concepts linked to the system theory at the same time as being treating the parents as the main actors in the treatment with slightly less focus on the child´s participation. BUP, on the other hand is more clearly using concepts linked to the child as the patient with more individual and clear focus on the child´s participation, suggesting that where there is a perception of the family as a system, there is less focus on the child´s participation and where there is more of an individual focus, there is more focus on the child´s participation.