Background: Type 2-diabetes is a growing public health problem that cause suffering for people living with the disease and it is expensive for the Swedish healthcare system. The diabetes specialist nurse is often the person who stands for the continuity in the diabetes care and therefore has a big inpact on the outcome. The aim of this study was to describe the diabetes nurse’s experience of nursing care for adults with type 2-diabetes in primary care. The used method is qualitative. Eight diabetes nurses were interviewed with semi structured interviews and the content was analysed with qualitative content analysis. The result showed obstacles, dilemmas and possibilities experienced in diabetes care. Conclusion: There is a winning in knowing about obstacles, dilemmas and possibilities that can be experienced by diabetes specialist nurses in order to maintain a good diabetes care. The experienced obstacles and dilemmas needs to be continuously studied in order to keep evolving the diabetes care.

Aim: The overall aim is to develop knowledge about learning to live with diabetes.   Methods: All four studies have been carried out within the caring science and using a life-world phenomenological approach. Study (I): data was collected through written narratives from seven patients with insulin treatment. Studies (II and III): data was collected through interviews with twelve patients with diabetes. Study (IV): Data was collected from four groups and two individual interviews with sixteen diabetes nurses. The method for the analysis can be described as a dialectic process, beginning with the whole, analyzing its parts, and then reconstructing the whole in order to understand the essence of the phenomenon.   Main Findings: The result showed that patients’ experiences of the most obvious meanings of the phenomenon of being stricken by diabetes (I) are the fight against becoming your illness, a wish that everything would be as usual and that the new situation should only be natural. Furthermore, after having been diagnosed with the illness, the results demonstrated two themes that were particularly important in learning to live with diabetes. These were your own responsibility for gaining knowledge in order to incorporate the illness into your life and to find a balance between fear and control (II).  As support for the learning (III), reflection over the learning and experiences has a crucial role for a new understanding of health processes. Insight into your own responsibility was a key factor for this reflection. To be able to give support (1V), the diabetes nurse must adopt a reflecting, self-critical attitude with an insight that the responsibility for learning lies with the patient and that the role for the diabetes nurse is to encourage and challenge the patient to self-reflection and taking responsibility on the basis of individual goals and pre-requisites. To give support in this way, the diabetes nurse must downplay the medical requirements for control and make more use of his/her medical competence to ask reflection-triggering questions based on a life-world perspective.   Conclusion: Based on the patient’s life-world, an understanding is created that supports learning, which thereby can reduce the influence of the illness on the patient's life.  This understanding makes it possible to incorporate the illness into the patient's life and create a balance between fear and control.

Background Type 2 diabetes demands self-management over time, to maintain health and reduce the risk for diabetes complications. However, despite efforts, many persons with type 2 diabetes are not reaching the treatment targets. In diabetes, person-centred care and group education are recommended. Diabetes specialist nurses (DSNs) working in primary healthcare have an important role in supporting patients with type 2 diabetes in their self-management to adapt to the demands of the disease in everyday life. Therefore, it is important to explore the DSNs’ professional role and their experiences of practising person-centred care. The overall aim of the thesis was to explore the professional role of DSNs in primary healthcare, and to describe their experiences of person-centred diabetes care. Methods The thesis includes three studies with qualitative, and one with a quantitative, approach. Data collection consisted of focus group interviews, individual interviews, observations, and questionnaires. Qualitative content analysis and statistics were used in the analysis. In studies I and II, 29 and 31 DSNs participated, respectively. In study III, 10 DSNs and 44 persons with type 2 diabetes participated. Lastly, in study IV, 10 DSNs participated. Results The results in the thesis showed that DSNs have a complex and multifaceted professional role that entails striving to be an expert, a fosterer, a leader, an executive, and a role model, which they found challenging. The DSNs perceived high job demands, such as decision-making and learning. The thesis also showed that the interaction between DSNs and persons with type 2 diabetes shifted from empowerment to authority struggles during group support sessions based on person-centred care. The experience of person-centred care was described as enriching, but DSNs also expressed ambivalence, related to an altered professional role. Conclusion There is a desire by DSNs to be close to persons with type 2 diabetes, although they have several challenges to fulfil, which makes it difficult to uphold a relation with proximity; thus, distance is also present. Even though person-centred care is recommended in healthcare, and despite DSNs’ efforts to practise PCC, the result of this thesis shows that it also implies an altered professional role for DSNs that has to be addressed. / Diabetes intervention in Västerbotten, DIVA 2

Bakgrund: Diabetes är ett växande problem i Sverige liksom i övriga världen. Sjukdomen och dess komplikationer orsakar mycket lidande och stora kostnader för samhället. Inom diabetesvården arbetar personalen för att patienter med diabetes ska leva ett gott liv med så lite lidande och komplikationer som möjligt. För att säkra kvalitén och utveckla vården behöver vårdpersonalen systematiskt och kontinuerligt identifiera förbättringsområden och genomföra små som stora förbättringsarbeten. Syfte: Denna studie syftar till att beskriva diabetessjuksköterskans arbete med förbättringar inom primärvården samt att beskriva faktorer som främjar respektive hindrar arbetet med förbättringar. Metod: Metoden som användes var en enkätbaserad kvantitativ tvärsnittsstudie. Totalt 84 diabetessjuksköterskor inom primärvården i Västra Götalandsregionen besvarade enkäten. Data analyserades statistiskt och redovisades deskriptivt. Öppna frågor analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Resultatet visade att 92% tyckte att det är mycket viktigt att bedriva förbättringsarbete och 56% angav att de hade ganska stora möjligheter att utföra förbättringsarbete. Av diabetessjuksköterskorna som besvarade enkäten så hade 63% ganska ofta idéer om förbättringsarbete och 73 % hade kunnat bedriva förbättringsarbete. Det som tydligast angavs som viktigt för att bedriva förbättringsarbete var stöd från ledningen, ett fungerande samarbete med övrig personal och tid för reflektion kring förbättringsområde. Slutsats: Diabetessjuksköterskan tycker det är viktigt med förbättringsarbete och har ofta idéer om förbättringsområden. Om försättningar ges vad gäller stöd från ledning, samarbete med övrig personal och tid för att kunna bedriva förbättringsarbete så ökar möjligheterna för att utvecklingen och kvaliteten av diabetesomvårdnaden drivs framåt. / Diabetes is a growing problem in Sweden as well as in the rest of the world. The disease and its complications cause a great deal of suffering and great costs to society. In diabetes care, health care personnel work to ensure that patients with diabetes live a good life with as little suffering and complications as possible. To ensure quality and develop care, healthcare personnel need to systematically and continuously identify areas of improvement and carry out small and large improvement work. Objective: The aim of the study was to explore the diabetes specialist nurse's work with improvements in primary care and to describe factors that promote and hinder the improvement work. Method: The method used was a survey-based quantitative cross-sectional study. A total of 84 diabetes specialist nurses in the Västra Götaland region answered the questionnaire. Data were analyzed statistically and presented descriptively. Open-ended questions were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. Results: The results of the study showed that 92% of the participants thought it was very important to do improvement work, 80% felt that they had very large or quite large opportunities to do improvement work and 86% indicated that they very often or quite often had ideas about improvement work. 73% of the participants had the opportunity to participate in improvement work. What was most clearly stated as important for being able to carry out improvement work was that they had support from management and time to be able to carry out improvement work. Conclusion: The diabetes specialist nurse's thinks it is important and often has ideas for improvement work. If the diabetes specialist nurse is given the conditions for conducting improvement work such as support from management, a working collaboration with other staff and time for reflection on improvement areas, it can lead to increased quality in diabetes care and better care for patients with diabetes.