The overall aim was to gain insight into and understand how physicians and nurses view the implementation of empowerment group education (EGE) in diabetes. Prior to the study the physicians and nurses attended a 2-day empowerment workshop. Further, they had implemented the empowerment approach in two groups of patients with type II diabetes. Three to 9 months later they (five physicians and 11 nurses from six family practices) participated in focus group interviews to evaluate the implementation of the EGE. The interviews were audio-taped, transcribed and analysed using the constant comparative method. The main result showed a conflict in roles. The physicians and nurses knew their role in the traditional approach but not with respect to the empowerment approach, which they needed to grow into. At the same time as they started a new way of working, their role had changed from being an expert to being a facilitator. As experts they felt secure, as facilitators they needed support in their educational process. To implement EGE they required support both from the family practice and from a supervisor in direct connection with the EGE. © 2004 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
Becoming parents of a child with Down's syndrome (DS) challenges the adjustment ability in parenthood. Individuals with higher sense of coherence (SOC) are supposed to manage stressors better than those with lower SOC. The aims of this study were to investigate parental self-perceived stress, SOC, frequency of gainful employment and amount of time spent on child care in Swedish DS parents (165 parents, 86 mothers, 79 fathers) and to compare those with control parents of healthy children (169 parents, 87 mothers, 82 fathers). The mean age of the children was 4.7 years. Parents responded to questionnaires separately including Hymovich's Parent Perception Inventory as stress measurement and Antonovsky's short version of the Orientation to Life. No differences concerning total employment rate were observed, but the DS mothers were more often employed part-time than control mothers. The DS parents did not spend more time on child care than the control parents and they did not differ in mean SOC score, but the DS parents perceived greater stress. The differences in stress, particularly between the DS and control mothers, were related to time-demanding areas. Parents with high SOC scores experienced significantly less self-perceived stress.
Background: The aims of present study were to study sickness absence among Swedish parents of children with Down's syndrome (DS) and to compare their rates of absence with those of control parents. Sickness absence data for 165 DS parents were compared with those for 174 control parents, all data were for the period 1997-2000. Sickness absence rates were also related to parental self-perceived health, stress and sense of coherence. Methods: The self-administrated measures of parental self-perceived health, stress and sense of coherence were compared with the number of days of sickness absence. Results: In about two-thirds of the parents in both the study and the control group, no days of sickness absence were registered. Six of the DS parents had remarkably large numbers of days of sickness absence (more than 100 per year). None of the control parents had such high sickness absence rates. It is speculated that there is a small group (less than 5%) of parents who are more vulnerable to the birth of a child with DS. Apart from these six DS parents, sickness absence was not more frequent among the DS parents than among the control parents. DS parents stayed at home to care for their sick DS child three times more often than control parents did for their non-disabled child. DS fathers took greater responsibility in the care of their temporarily sick child and stayed at home to care for the child even more often than control mothers did. DS parents with sickness periods experienced small deterioration in self-perceived health, significantly higher stress and decreased sense of coherence in comparison with parents without sickness periods. Conclusions: There was a great similarity in sick leave rates due to one's own sickness between DS and control parents, but a small group of DS parents (<5%) may be more vulnerable. DS fathers stayed at home to care for their sick DS child remarkably often. © 2006 The Authors. Journal Compilation © 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
The aim of this study was to compare self-perceived health among diabetic patients who experienced threat of blindness with those who had already gone blind. Another aim was to explore different aspects of self-care in relation to self-perceived health among the subjects. Twenty-one diabetic patients under threat of becoming blind and 23 with diabetes-related blindness agreed to participate in the study. The participants were compared with an age- and gender-matched nondiabetic reference group. Self-perceived health was measured using the 63-item Swedish Health-Related Quality of Life Survey (SWED-QUAL) questionnaire. Data on diabetes-related variables were collected from the patient's hospital records. An interview guide was created for measuring dimensions of self-care. Patients with threat of becoming blind showed better self-perceived health than blind patients, but no differences were found in comparison with the Swedish reference group. Blind patients scored lower in 6 of the 13 health domains and they reported more problems with diabetes self-care than patients with threat of becoming blind. One of the 13 health domains, role limitations due to physical health, seemed to be associated with impaired self-care although only a partial understanding could be demonstrated. The results show that blind patients need specific support to cope well with different self-care situations. A great challenge in future research in diabetes is to implement education programs suitable especially for patients who have gone blind because of diabetes. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The objective of this study was to investigate student nurses' ability to handle a pain assessment situation. A systematic way of working based on knowledge within the area is emphasised in nursing education today. The performance of 32 student nurses at a university college in Sweden took place in an arranged assessment situation that closely simulated clinical practice. The conversation between the student and the patient (a voluntary patient) was videotaped and analysed with content analysis according to predetermined components of pain assessment. The results showed that one-third of the students had performed adequately based on the requirements for pain assessment in the curriculum for nursing education. Two-thirds of the group did not handle the situation systematically and also showed a lack of knowledge of pain assessment, and among these was a group of students whose performance was inadequate. The results indicate that during their education it is very important for student nurses to obtain experience and guidance in how to work systematically and to have their knowledge and skills in pain assessment evaluated. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Objective. To determine glycaemic control in elderly patients with diabetes living in community dwelling. Design. Descriptive, cross-sectional and open. Prospective with regard to blood glucose. Setting. Community-dwelling in-patients. Subjects. From a total number of 351 patients in seven Swedish centres of community dwelling we identified and recruited all 45 patients with diabetes receiving treatment with insulin, and/or oral medication. Main outcome measures. Blood glucose was measured fasting, 2 h after breakfast, in the evening and at night, for three consecutive days. Results. Mean HbA1c was 5.9 ± 1.1% (range 3.6-8.6%). The patients were split in three HbA1c-groups for analysis: lower- (3.6-5.3%), middle-(5.4-6.3%) and higher-tertile (6.4-8.6%). The groups where similar with regard to age, time in community dwelling, ability to eat and move around independently, but body mass index was lower in the lower tertile (P < 0.003 and P < 0.04, compared with middle- and higher-tertiles). We recorded 14 episodes with blood glucose ≤4.0 mmol L-1 in eight patients. Blood glucose ≤4.0 mmol L-1 was mostly recorded during night (n = 8) or in the morning (n = 3). Conclusions. Swedish patients with diabetes in community dwelling are over- rather than undertreated and have low HbA1c levels. Despite very regular eating habits and near total compliance with medication, hypoglycaemias are frequent and possibly linked to malnutrition.
[No abstract available]
The aim of the present study was to identify factors in oral health and also diabetes-related and socio-economic components that could be associated with the subject's health-related quality of life (HRQL). One-hundred-and-two randomly sampled type 2 diabetic and 102 age-matched and gender-matched non-diabetic subjects from the same residential area were studied cross-sectionally using the SF-36 questionnaire. Although the HRQL profiles were similar in nature, the control subjects indicated a more favorable health status in their HRQL scores than did type 2 diabetic subjects. Certain oral health factors contributed to deterioration of the patient's HRQL. Multiple regression analyses including both groups were used to determine variables explaining variance in the different HRQL domains. Dissatisfaction with teeth and mouth, feeling of dry mouth and poor financial status contributed to about one-fourth of the explanation of the variance in all health domains. Having diabetes played an important role in the domains Physical Functioning, Role functioning-Physical, General Health, and Social Functioning. Age was important for Physical Functioning and Role functioning-Physical. Our study indicates that different factors may be asociated with impaired HRQL, especially among type 2 diabetic subjects, although only a partial understanding of its relation to oral health could be demonstrated.
Background. Caring is a core characteristic of nursing. Nurses' caring behaviour has been explored in several studies. When caring for trauma patients, the most important caring behaviour must be the procedures associated with lifesaving. However, it is important not to forget the patient's psychological needs. Aim. The aim of this study was to highlight encounters between injured patients and nurses in the trauma team and to explore whether the theory of caring and uncaring encounters in nursing and health care is applicable in emergency care. Data collection and analysis. Data were collected by videotaping caring episodes between slightly injured patients and nurses in the trauma team. Five episodes involving 10 nurses were studied. The analysis was carried out in four steps. First the videotapes were studied several times and then transcribed into narratives, which were reduced into courses of events. These were subsequently classified according to aspects of caring and uncaring. Results. The nurses' verbal and non-verbal communication was poor, and they adopted a wait-and-see policy. A new uncaring aspect, instrumental behaviour, emerged from this poor communication. One of the caring aspects, being dedicated and having courage to be appropriately involved, could not be identified. Most encounters included several aspects of caring and uncaring, but the uncaring aspects predominated. The dominance of uncaring aspects indicates a lack of affective caring behaviour. Conclusion. The result showed that the theory is partly applicable in emergency care. A new aspect, instrumental behaviour emerged. The nurses' behaviour in the five episodes was labelled as uncaring. Authentic nurse-patient encounters are essential in nursing. Relevance to clinical practice. The importance of meeting patients' psychological needs and nurses' affective caring behaviour should be emphasized in trauma care, trauma courses and nursing education. It is necessary to measure the caring behaviour of trauma nurses.