Magister Scientiae - MSc / The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of and risk factors contributing to work-related musculoskeletal injuries amongst underground mine workers in Kitwe, Zambia.

Please read the abstract in the 00front part of this document / Thesis (DPhil (Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Psychology / unrestricted

This research study is focused on understanding the phenomenology of happiness of High Performing Teachers (HPT) working in an elementary school located in a Midwest City. The purpose of the study was to understand positive and negative emotions of HPT, through their experiences at work and home. Qualitative methodology through in-depth interviews was employed for this study. Tomkins' affect theory of happiness (ATH), was used to assess and explore positive and negative emotions of participants of the study. In this study a purposeful sample of 11 participants that work in elementary school located in a Midwest City, participated in in-depth, face-to face interviews. Results of this study based on experiences of HPT show that positive experiences such as relaxing time at home, spending time with family members they felt make them happy. To understand negative emotions, most of participants indicated that anxiety; inappropriate interactions with others at work site, and financial issues are the main negative experiences that impact their performance. Overall, most of HPT felt happy in life; however, results show that they are happier at home. This study brought new knowledge about positive and negative emotions and the importance for public organizations about improving staff interactions that may impact the contribution to performing better as teachers.

The effects of pain suffered from musculoskeletal disorders by dental professionals may lead to reduced work hours, loss of production, and early retirement. Although third- and fourth-year dental students are provided lectures about musculoskeletal disorders, proper positioning and ergonomics, they are at an increased risk of developing MSD. This study was conducted to evaluate the prevalence on musculoskeletal disorders in third- and fourth-year dental students and to determine if third-year dental students experience more MSD pain than fourth-year dental students at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Dentistry. A total of 50 third- and fourth- year dental students responded to the online questionnaire, 21 third-year dental students and 29 fourth-year dental students. Both third- and fourth-year dental students report experiencing MSD pain over the last twelve months. There was no statistically significant difference between MSD pain felt between third- or fourth-year dental students.

Bakgrund: Sedan slutet av 1990-talet har det i Sverige skett en ökning av långtidssjukskrivningar som framförallt beror på psykisk ohälsa. Personal inom sjukvården anser att deras arbete är stressigt och sjuksköterskor upplever att arbetet kan vara psykisk påfrestande. Orsakerna till detta antas bland annat bero på de omorganisationer och neddragningar som skett de senaste decennierna. Sjuksköterskans profession innebär ett ansvar för patientens omvårdnad som ska grundas på vetenskap och evidens. Dessutom ska sjuksköterskans arbete vara personcentrerat, följa regelverk och lagar så att god patientsäkerhet upprätthålls. Långvarig stress kan leda till utmattningssyndrom, vilket inte bara påverkar sjuksköterskan psykiskt och fysiskt, utan även organisationens produktivitet genom minskad motivation bland anställda. Syfte: Att belysa vilka faktorer som kan bidra till att Nordiska sjuksköterskor drabbas av stress och utmattningssyndrom Metod: En litteraturöversikt med analys av 10 originalartiklar Resultat: Resultatet delades in i två teman: yttre faktorer och inre faktorer. De yttre faktorerna var hög arbetsbelastning och krav, bristande delaktighet och ledarskap samt bristande socialt stöd och samarbete. De inre faktorerna sjuksköterskorna upplevde var otillräcklighet och engagemang. Diskussion: I metoddiskussionen diskuteras litteraturöversikten som metod för examensarbetet och i resultatdiskussion diskuteras resultatet utifrån Antonovskys holistiska modell KASAM samt vetenskaplig litteratur. / Background: Since the late 1990's there has been an increase in long-term sick leave in Sweden due to mental illness. Healthcare staff consider work as stressful and nurses feel that their work may be mentally stressful. The reasons for this are assumed to the reorganization and cuts that have taken place in the recent decades. The Nurse´s profession means responsible and ensuring that the patient receives care, based on science and evidence. In addition, the nurse´s work should include looking after the patient´s individual needs and comply with regulations and laws to maintain patient-safety. Long-term stress can lead to burnout, which not only affects nurse´s mentally and physically health but also the organization's productivity through employees reduced motivation, and sick leave. Aim: To highlight which factors could contribute to Nordic nurses suffering from stress and burnout. Method: A literature review of 10 original articles Results: The results were divided into two themes: external and internal factors. The external factors that the Nordic nurses experienced were high workloads and demands, lack of participation and leadership as well as lack of social support and cooperation. The internal factors that nurses experienced were commitment and feelings of insufficiency. Discussion: In the method discussion, the literature review is discussed as a method for the degree project, and in the result discussion the results are discussed based on Antonovsky's holistic model SOC as well as scientific literature.

Bakgrund: Hälso- och sjukvårdspersonal har ett yrke med hög arbetsbelastning som riskerar att leda till arbetsrelaterad stress som i sin tur kan leda till att patientvården påverkas. Det resulterar även i hög sjukfrånvaro, extra ekonomiska utgifter och hög personalomsättning. Följden av detta blir att samhället och organisationen förlorar både kompetens och ekonomiska medel. De senaste åren har användandet av mindfulness uppmärksammats inom den svenska hälso- och sjukvården. Den hittills genomförda forskningen tyder på att mindfulness kan ha gynnsamma effekter så som stressminskning, avslappning och förbättring av livskvalitén. Syfte: Syftet med litteraturöversikten var att sammanställa aktuell forskning om mindfulness som intervention vid arbetsrelaterad stress hos hälso- och sjukvårdspersonal. Metod: Studien genomfördes som en litteraturöversikt där 15 vetenskapliga artiklar med kvantitativ, kvalitativ samt mixad ansats inkluderades. Sökningarna gjordes via databaserna PubMed, CINAHL och PsycINFO. Resultat: I resultatet framkom det två kategorier: Mindfulness-baserade interventioner som kan användas för att hantera arbetsrelaterad stress samt mindfulness påverkan vid arbetsrelaterad stress. Resultatet visade att mindfulnessträning har en reducerande påverkan på stress, utmattning, depression och ångest samt en ökning av medkänsla och medveten närvaro. Slutsats: Mindfulness har en mängd olika variationer av interventioner som kan vara fördelaktiga för att minska hälso- och sjukvårdspersonalens stress. Mindfulness som intervention har potential att effektivt minska arbetsrelaterad stress bland hälso- och sjukvårdpersonal. Litteraturöversiktens resultat är relevant för att minska stressnivå hos hälsooch sjukvårdspersonal vilket medför minskade vårdkostnader samt öka förutsättningar för att ge god och säker vård till patienten. / Background: Health care professionals have a profession with a high workload that risks leading to work-related stress, which in turn can lead to patient care being affected. It also results in high sick leave, extra financial expenses and high staff turnover. The consequence of this is that society and the organization lose both competence and financial resources. In recent years, the use of mindfulness has gained attention in Swedish health care. The research conducted so far suggests that mindfulness can have beneficial effects such as stress reduction, relaxation, and improving the quality of life. Aim: The purpose of the literature review was to compile current research on mindfulness as an intervention to manage work-related stress among health care professionals. Method: The study was conducted as a literature review which included 15 scientific articles with a quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method. The searches were made through the databases PubMed, CINAHL and PsycINFO. R esults: In the result, two categories emerged: Mindfulness-based interventions that can be used to deal with work-related stress and mindfulness impact on work-related stress. The results showed that mindfulness training has a reducing effect on stress, burnout, depression and anxiety, as well as an increase in compassion and conscious presence. Conclusion: Mindfulness has a variety of interventions that can be beneficial in reducing the stress of health care professionals. Mindfulness as an intervention has the potential to reduce work-related stress among healthcare professionals effectively. The results of the literature review are relevant to reducing the stress level of health care professionals, which results in reduced healthcare costs and increased conditions for providing good and safe care to the patient.

Technological development has made working conditions more digital in today’s society, where the use of wireless aids has removed boundaries creating a more flexible working environment. Individuals now have the ability to decide for themselves about when, where and how ones work should be performed. The purpose of this study is to obtain an insight on how work without boundaries is experienced by individuals. Previous research links work with less boundaries to a more sustainable lifestyle where the individual has the ability to easier separate work from leisure time. This is however highly dependent on work characteristics which determines the possibility of flexible working conditions. This study has by the use of qualitative interviews aimed focus on real estate brokers, an occupation which has work characteristics that are considered to be less determined by boundaries in terms of working hours and income. This study highlights strategies on how real estate brokers can separate work life from private life, or choose to combine the two. Finally, the study has identified a set of characteristics which are important to the individual when it comes to managing work without boundaries. / Samhällets teknologiska utveckling har möjliggjort en ökad gränslöshet i arbetslivet och dagligen används portabla hjälpmedel som bidrar till arbetets flexibilitet. Den enskilda individen får i större utsträckning själv bestämma när, var och hur arbetet ska utföras. I denna studie undersöks hur individer kan uppleva och hantera gränslöshet med syftet att få en djupare förståelse för fenomenet gränslöst arbete. Enligt tidigare forskning är upplevelsen av gränslöst arbete kopplad till möjligheten för en fritid som inte inkluderar arbetet, detta för att möjliggöra återhämtning och för att bibehålla välmående i längden. Beroende på yrkets karaktär är detta dock inte alltid möjligt. Studien har genom kvalitativa intervjuer fokuserat på en grupp fastighetsmäklare vars yrke har en tydlig gränslöshet där allt från arbetstid till inkomst varierar. Studien synliggör även strategier som innefattar att individen antingen kan välja att kombinera arbetslivet med privatlivet eller att se dem som två separata sfärer utan koppling till varandra. Vidare har olika karaktärsdrag identifierats som tycks vara av stor vikt för både hanteringen och upplevelsen av det gränslösa arbetet.

The purpose of the study was to examine social workers 'experience of work-related stress atthe investigation unit for children, young people and families. Five semi-structuredinterviews were done. Results were analyzed using previous research, the requirementscontrol-support model and ’’sense of coherence’’ (SOC) as theoretical starting points. Theresults of the study show that the social workers who participated had a similar experience ofwork-related stress. The stress occurred because of the workload. An informant's experienceof stress differed from other informants as that informant's work-related stress wasknowledge-based. The results analysis shows that four out of five informants were in a tensejob based on requirements-control-support model due to the demands placed and the controlcarried out by the social workers being out of balance. An informant was at an active job andhad a higher SOC than the rest. All informants mention some type of support given to helpdeal with the work-related stress, how much this support helps the social workers havedifferent opinions about. The informants gave different suggestions for changes for the workrelated stress to reduce, but all suggestions lead to the factor that there is a shortage of staffand high staff turnover. / Syftet med studien var att undersöka socialsekreterares upplevelse av arbetsrelaterad stresspå utredningsenhet barn, ungdom och familj. Genom målstyrt bekvämlighetsurvalgenomfördes fem enskilda semistrukturerade intervjuer för att insamla empiri. Dessatranskriberades och tematiserades. Resultatet analyserades med hjälp av tidigare forskning,krav-kontroll-stödmodellen och ‘’känsla av sammanhang’’(KASAM) som teoretiskautgångspunkter. Under arbetets gång framträdde tre teman. Studiens resultat visar att fyraav fem socialsekreterare upplevde att stressen beror på den arbetsbelastning arbetsplatsenpräglas av. En informants upplevelse av stress skiljde sig från andra informanter dåinformantens arbetsrelaterade stress var kunskapsbaserad. Resultatanalysen visar på att fyraav fem informanter befann sig på ett spänt arbete enligt krav-kontroll och stöd modellen ochhade lägre KASAM jämfört med och en informant befann sig på aktivt arbete och hade högreKASAM. Alla informanter nämner någon typ av stöd som ges för att hjälpa till med atthantera den arbetsrelaterade stressen som uppstår, hur mycket detta stöd hjälper är det olikaåsikter om. De förslagen till förändring som uppgavs för att minska den arbetsrelateradestressen var olika, samtliga förslagen leder dock slutligen till det faktorn att det är brist påbemanning och hög personalomsättning.

Bakgrund: En ambulans är en bil som är utrustad för att kunna utföra ambulanssjukvård och transportera akut sjuka patienter till sjukhus. Arbetsrelaterad stress innebär sambandet mellan anställda och arbetsmiljö på arbetsplatser. Det uppkommer när kraven på de anställda överstiger vad de egentligen klarar av. Sjuksköterskans kärnkompetenser bygger på ett ansvar att upprätthålla en god personcentrerad omvårdnad. Metod: Metoden var en kvalitativ empirisk intervjustudie. 2 ambulanssjuksköterskor och 2 sjuksköterskor som arbetar inom ambulanssjukvården intervjuades. Materialet analyserades genom Graneheim och Lundmans (2003) kvalitativa innehållsanalys. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att undersöka om och hur arbetsrelaterad stress påverkar den personcentrerade omvårdnaden till patienter inom ambulanssjukvården. Resultat: Genom den kvalitativa innehållsanalysen identifierades 2 kategorier: Upp till bevis och två sidor av samma mynt. Underkategorier till respektive tema identifierades. Resultatet visade att sjuksköterskorna som intervjuades menade att kollegor har en stor betydelse, erfarenhet och kompetens är viktigt för att känna trygghet, de upplevde en annan typ av stress när de var nya och att anhöriga kan bidra till den stressen som sjuksköterskan kan uppleva. Konklusion: Arbetsrelaterad stress är något som sjuksköterskor i ambulanssjukvården upplever. Syftet med denna studien var att undersöka hur detta kan påverka den personcentrerade omvårdnaden för patienten. Slutsatsen är att sjuksköterskorna inte upplever stress för patienten utan faktorer runt omkring. / Background: An ambulance is a car that is equipped to carry out prehospital care and transport acutely ill patients to hospitals. Work-related stress is defined as the relationship between employees and the work environment in workplaces. This occurs when the work load for employees exceed what they are actually capable of. The nurse in the ambulance is responsible for ensuring that good care is maintained as stated in the nurse's core competencies. Method: The method was a qualitative empirical interview study. 2 ambulance nurses and 2 nurses working in the ambulance service were interviewed. The material was analyzed through Graneheim and Lundman's(2003) qualitative content analysis. Aim: The aim of this study was to examine if work-related stress affects the person centered care to patients in prehospital care. Findings: Through the qualitative content analysis, 2 categories were identified: Earn your stripes and two sides of the same coin. Subcategories of each theme were identified. The results showed that the nurses interviewed meant that colleagues have a great importance, experience and competence are important to feel safe, they experienced a different type of stress when they were new and that relatives can contribute to the stress that the nurse can experience. Conclusion: Work-related stress is something that nurses experience. The aim was to investigate how this can affect the person-centered care for the patient. The conclusion is that the nurse´s do notexperience stress for the patients, but factors around.

The main issue of this work concerns the meaning of educational supervisionas a tool for collaborative work-related knowledge formation in preschool. The study is based upon and complements the analysis of the phenomenoneducational supervision in a previous study presented in my previousbook Det mångtydiga mötet – ett försök att förstå komplexiteten i pedagogiskhandledning med yrkesverksamma [The many folded encounter – anattempt to understand the complexity in collaborative educational supervision].Supervision dialogues are in the focus as one of several tools for developingthe content of knowledge in preschool, the knowledgebase of the professionals,and their coping with professional issues within their daily work.These two studies together form my licentiate treatise. For studying the phenomenon,two perspectives have been used: a societal and an inter-subjectiveperspective. Educational supervision, as an epistemic culture, is analysed inrelation to an emerging knowledge society. The implementation of a new curriculum for preschool, with its model forparticipatory goal-steering, has been the basis for the analysis of the supervisionprocess as an activity for knowledge formation. The analysis is relatedto curriculum theory. Issues related to power are crucial in contexts for supervision.These are analysed with regards to the participators in the supervisiondialogue on the one hand, and to institutional actors, e.g. the relationshipbetween university and preschool and between the professionals in a localpreschool and the administrative level of the municipality, on the other. Thefundamental premise of the work has been that supervision is to be conductedon the conditions of those being supervised. The study relies on previous experiences of and reflections on supervisionas well as on consultee-centered case consultation. Further material and methodsused for the study are interviews with supervisors and supervised, andtextual analysis of contemporary educational literature on supervision. Thelatter includes both a close and a distanced re-reading of my above mentionedbook. Educational supervision of professionals seems to have developedinto a specific domain within the field of supervision. As a result of the review,supervision was categorised as three approaches with regards to their respectiveoverarching goal. The potentially positive and negative effects of supervision, as well assome pitfalls, have been identified. The conclusions concern criteria for goodsupervision that contribute to a dialogue for knowledge formation within aninter-subjective perspective. An inter-subjective relation, with an object forsupervision that is negotiated with regards to autonomy as well as reciprocalityis emphasized. A narrative strategy for supervision is seen as a possibilityfor developing a professional language and a domain for further investigations. / <p>With an abstract in English</p>