<p>Syftet med studien var att beskriva fyrtioåringars reflektioner kring hälsosamtalet och eventuella livsstilsförändringar upp till åtta månader efter hälsosamtalet. Studien hade en kvalitativ ansats med beskrivande design. Totalt deltog tio fyrtioåringar. Data samlades in via semistrukturerade intervjuer och materialet analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultatet redovisas utifrån fyra kategorier: <em>att samtala om sig själv, att leva som förut, att komma till insikt </em>och<em> att genomföra en livsstilsförändring.</em> Resultatet visade att fyrtioåringarna i stort upplevde sitt deltagande i hälsosamtalet som positivt och ansåg att det var ett bra samtal. Deltagarna beskrev att de blev bra bemötta, distriktssköterskans bemötande gav en trygghet under hälsosamtalet. Tryggheten gjorde att deltagarna kände sig fria att samtala om sin hälsa. Flera av deltagarna berättade att de inte lärde sig något nytt under hälsosamtalet men trots detta ansågs hälsosamtalet vara en tankeställare om individens framtida hälsa. Samtalet satte igång tankarna men gav inga större förändringar i livsstil. Resultatet visade att flera av deltagarna inte hade genomfört livsstilsförändringar och några beskrev att det behövs mer uppföljning efter hälsosamtalet för att skapa en livsstilsförändring på lång sikt. Slutsatsen är att fyrtioåringar i stort är positiva till sitt deltagande i hälsosamtal men att det är svårt att genomföra en livsstilsförändring.</p>

<p>Studiens övergripande syfte var att undersöka några chefers attityder till en personalsatsning ämnad för att uppnå bättre arbetsklimat och hälsa i en organisation, vidare var syftet att med utgångspunkt ur dessa chefers attityder till personalsatsningen undersöka möjligheter till hur personalsatsningen och dess verksamhet skulle kunna få ett starkare genomslag i den aktuella organisationen. Studien presenterar inledningsvis en forskningsöversikt över de delar som verksamheten skulle kunna beskrivas utifrån, där behandlas begreppen fritid, gemenskap, hälsofrämjande, engagemang, ledarens roll som förebild och normbildare i företaget liksom det för studien centrala begreppet attityder. Studien är en fallstudie i ett av Nordens ledande företag inom bygg och anläggning där kvalitativa intervjuer har genomförts med åtta chefer inom det aktuella företaget för att samla in det empiriska materialet. Resultatet visade att de intervjuade chefernas syn på personalsatsningen och dess verksamhet är positiv, dock skiljer sig deras syn på och deras faktiska engagemang i verksamheten och dess aktiviteter åt. Resultatet presenteras i form av fyra övergripande områden: perspektiv på personalsatsningen, engagemang och delaktighet, framtidsmöjligheter och attityder till verksamheten. De attityder till verksamheten som framkom bland cheferna under intervjuerna kan vidare delas in i tre kategorier: ”engagerade”, ”distanserade” och ”sansade”. Inga slutsatser har kunnat dras ur denna undersökning, men förslag till fortsatta tankeområden har lagts fram under slutsatser sist i uppsatsen.</p> / <p>The overall purpose with this paper was to examine attitudes towards a human resources investment among top managers. In other words, how did the managers look at the investment and what did they think about its activities. Moreover, the purpose of the paper was to attempt to find possible ways to get the investment into a higher level of success within the current company. By way of introduction, the paper begins with a research summary of conceivable ways to describe the investment containing four concepts; leisure, spirit of togetherness, health promotion and engagement. Then, the matter of the leader has been discussed in terms of normative and to be a person for someone to model themselves on within an organization. The theoretical framework of references has been finished with a review about attitudes, which represent another central concept in this paper. The empirical part derived from a case study where qualitative interviews were initiated with eight top managers within one of the largest Nordic building and construction companies. Research findings showed that attitudes towards the human resource investment were positive in general, but the level of engagement with the human resource investment did vary among the managers. The research findings have been introduced through four main headlines; perspectives on the investment, engagement and participation, future prospects and attitudes towards the activities. Moreover, the attitudes which emerged among the managers have been divided into three categories;”engaged”,”distanced” and”level-headed”. No conclusions have been drawn from this paper, but some proposals that could be considered have been suggested.</p>

<p>The aim of this study was to investigate how school personnel work with preventive and health promoting efforts to motivate young people to achieve interest in physical activity and nutrition awareness. Further the aim was to describe the possibilities and difficulties that school personnel experience in their work.  The research questions were: How do school personnel describe their health promoting work at school? In a health promotion perspective, what efforts do school personnel think is important when it comes to nutrition and physical activity? What possibilities do school personnel experience with health promoting efforts? What difficulties do school personnel experience with health promoting efforts?</p><p>The study has a qualitative approach in which seven individual interviews were conducted with personnel at a secondary school. The respondents worked with different aspects which broadened the perspective. One interview was also made with a person who works as a fitness consultant in a non-profit organization. Earlier studies about preventive school interventions and studies about how to achieve increased physical activity and nutrition awareness among children and adolescents were used to interpret the results. The main result shows that the school personnel works according to the World Health Organization’s concept “Health Promoting Schools” to a certain extent and this made a difference in attitudes among students. The result also shows that the most important aspects to succeed with health promoting efforts seem to be self-esteem, co-operation between school and parents, influence and participation of students, group interaction and theoretical and practical knowledge and education. Possibilities and difficulties are described from the factors above but also according to the governing documents that school education is framed by.  </p>

<p>The number of persons who are not employed has increased in Sweden since the early 1990s. Unemployment has been found to influence health, especially when unemployment rates are low. The extent to which unemployment affects health when unemployment is high is less clear, and this needs to be further studied. To improve health in the population, the health care system should offer equal access to health care according to need. It is important to study whether the employment status hinders the fulfilment of this goal. </p><p>This thesis is based on four papers: Paper I and II aimed at analysing self-rated health versus mortality risk in relation to employment status, during one period of low unemployment and one period of high unemployment. Paper III and IV assessed the use of medical health care services and unmet care needs among persons who were unemployed or otherwise not employed. The goal was to analyse what health problems lead people to either seek or abstain from seeking care, and what factors encumber or facilitate this process. </p><p>The overall results indicate that being unemployed or outside the labour force was associated with an excess risk of poor self-rated health, symptoms of depression, mental and physical exhaustion and mortality. The differences in self-rated health between the unemployed and employed were larger when unemployment levels were high, than when they were low. More groups of the unemployed were also afflicted with poor health when unemployment was high. Thus, poor health among the unemployed seems to be a public health problem during high levels of unemployment. Lack of employment was related to abstaining from seeking care, despite perceiving a need for care, and this was related to psychological symptoms. To deal with the needs of the unemployed and others who are outside the labour force it would be useful to develop and implement interventions within the health care system. These should focus on psychological and psychosocial problems. Future research should analyse how to facilitate health-promoting interventions among persons who are not anchored in the labour market. </p>

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2007.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

<p>Low back pain (LBP) is a growing health and socio-economic problem worldwide, affecting humans from adolescent to adult age. In developed countries, more than 80% of adults are at risk of suffering a disabling episode of LBP at one point during their life time. In developing countries, particularly in Africa, the life time prevalence of LBP varies in population groups, but the disability due to LBP is increasing. The aetiology of LBP is multifactorial, and there is still no consensus on the exact cause and contributing factors to LBP. In addition, little is known about patients&rsquo / knowledge and beliefs on the contributing factors to their LBP. The current study therefore, aimed to identify patients&rsquo / knowledge, attitudes and beliefs on the contributing factors to LBP, among patients attending physiotherapy outpatient departments in Malawi.</p>

With a post-structural approach and an analytical focus on processes of governmentality and biopower, this study is concerned with how discourses of health are contextualized in educational practice and interaction between educators and participants in workplace health promotion (WHP) interventions. Of concern are issues of the discursive production, regulation and representation of power, knowledge and subjects as gendered beings in workplace health promotion interventions. The methods for generating data are participant observation, interviews and gathering of documentation pertaining to four different workplace health promotion nterventions. Based on these data, the thesis offers an analysis of the health discourses drawn on in the interventions and the technologies of power and of the self by which the participants are governed and invited to govern themselves in the name of health. It also asks what practices and positions that thus come to be made available or not to the participants. Two health discourses are identified: the biomedical discourse and the wellness discourse. Both discourses are drawn on in all four studied interventions, the biomedical discourse being the dominating discourse drawn on. The biomedical discourse is informed by scientific ‘facts’ and statistics and is underpinned by a notion of risk. The wellness discourse is informed by an understanding of health as a subjective embodied experience and is underpinned by a notion of pleasure. Drawing on these discourses, the responsibility for health is placed with the participants and the healthy participant/employee is constituted as a rationally motivated risk-avoider and disciplined pleasure seeker who is both willing and able to actively make ‘good’ choices regarding their lifestyle. Furthermore, and informed by essentialist and heteronormative ideas about gender, the ideal healthy person is modelled on a male norm, representing women as the deviant Other.

Hälsosamma levnadsvanor är en viktig förutsättning för att skapa en positiv hälsoutveckling och kostvanor, fysisk aktivitet och stress är faktorer som påverkar hälsan. Till följd av den senare tidens förändringar i samhället har befolkningens levnadsvanor förändrats till en mer ohälsosam kost, fysisk inaktivitet, och stressen har ökat. De förändrade levnadsvanorna har påverkat folkhälsan, och att satsa på dessa områden i folkhälsoarbetet kan ge betydelsefulla hälsovinster. Landstinget Västmanland driver ett projekt med syftet att främja hälsosamma levnadsvanor. I projektet ingår ”Kom i form gruppen” som är en gruppverksamhet som inriktas på kost, fysisk aktivitet och stress. Syftet var att undersöka deltagarnas upplevelser av deltagandet i ”Kom i form gruppen” och om deltagandet har påverkat deras levnadsvanor. För att besvara syftet användes en kvalitativ metod med intervjuer. Resultatet visar att innehållet på träffarna inte har gett någon ny kunskap. Deltagandet har gett medvetenhet och motivation och upplevelsen om kostvanor har påverkats varierar mellan deltagarna. Deltagarnas motionsvanor har påverkats genom regelbundna motionstillfällen och vardagsmotion. Påverkan på stress har inte skett men de försöker att tänka på att stressa mindre. Tidsbrist och stress upplevs dock som ett hinder för att leva hälsosamt. / Healthy lifestyles are an important condition for creating a positive health and dietary habits, physical activity and stress are factors that affect health. As a result of recent changes in society people's lifestyles have changes through unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and stress has increased. Changing lifestyles have affected public health, and to invest in these areas in public health work can provide significant health benefits. Västmanland County Council operates a project to promote healthy behavior. The project includes "Kom i form gruppen" which is a group that focuses on nutrition, physical activity and stress. The aim was to investigate participants' experiences of participation in "Kom i form gruppen" and if the participation has affected their lifestyles. To answer the purpose, a qualitative approach with interviews used. The result shows that the content of the meetings has not identified any new knowledge. Participation has provided awareness and motivation and appreciation of food habits have been affected varied between participants. The participants' exercise habits have been affected by regular exercise occasions and everyday physical activity. Effect of stress has not been made, but they try to think about to rush less. Lack of time and stress, however, perceived as an impediment to healthy living.

Syftet med studien var att beskriva fyrtioåringars reflektioner kring hälsosamtalet och eventuella livsstilsförändringar upp till åtta månader efter hälsosamtalet. Studien hade en kvalitativ ansats med beskrivande design. Totalt deltog tio fyrtioåringar. Data samlades in via semistrukturerade intervjuer och materialet analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultatet redovisas utifrån fyra kategorier: att samtala om sig själv, att leva som förut, att komma till insikt och att genomföra en livsstilsförändring. Resultatet visade att fyrtioåringarna i stort upplevde sitt deltagande i hälsosamtalet som positivt och ansåg att det var ett bra samtal. Deltagarna beskrev att de blev bra bemötta, distriktssköterskans bemötande gav en trygghet under hälsosamtalet. Tryggheten gjorde att deltagarna kände sig fria att samtala om sin hälsa. Flera av deltagarna berättade att de inte lärde sig något nytt under hälsosamtalet men trots detta ansågs hälsosamtalet vara en tankeställare om individens framtida hälsa. Samtalet satte igång tankarna men gav inga större förändringar i livsstil. Resultatet visade att flera av deltagarna inte hade genomfört livsstilsförändringar och några beskrev att det behövs mer uppföljning efter hälsosamtalet för att skapa en livsstilsförändring på lång sikt. Slutsatsen är att fyrtioåringar i stort är positiva till sitt deltagande i hälsosamtal men att det är svårt att genomföra en livsstilsförändring.