Help and Care to Older Parents in the Digital Society

This study examines the extent and predictors of employees’ help and care to their old parentsand aims to contribute to policy development enabling employees to combine full-time workand caregiving to parents. Analyzing responses from 3332 Norwegian employees aged between45 and 67 years with at least one living parent, we identified frequencies of different help andcare types and tested competing predictors. Assistance with digital technology was frequent, andvarious types of practical support were common, but personal care provision was rare. Parents’health and parents living alone were substantial predictors. Public home care services seemedinsufficient and were associated with employees providing more help and care. The findingsemphasize the family as a comprehensive care provider when the welfare state falls short. Thestudy concludes that adult children play a critical role in helping older people cope with limitedpublic services and challenges posed by the digital society

Prioritising care services: Do the oldest users lose out?

Population ageing is a major concern in most European countries. Demands for health- and care services will increase, as older people typically have a higher need for such services. What is often overlooked, however, is that older users increasingly compete with younger users for the same limited care resources. We ask: How do employees in the Norwegian care sector make decisions regarding the allocation of services to younger and older users? To answer this question, we interviewed decision-makers in Norwegian municipalities. Despite providing for equal rights to services, laws allow for an interpretation of needs and this can result in the unequal distribution of services. Our study indicates that needs are defined differently for younger and older users, which affects the amount, type and content of the services allocated to younger and older people. When resources are scarce and priorities must be established, the services to the oldest suffer.måsjekke

Ungdoms engstelse for vold omfang, årsaker og konsekvenser

One out of two youths, aged 15-24 years, reported in 1995 that they had been anxious of being exposed to violence when they went downtown in the evenings in the capital Oslo. Twenty percent said they had been anxious to experience violence when they visited friends in the neighbourhood or on their way to school. Youths living in rural districts feel more safe. The majority of respondents without a recent experience of violence reported that they were anxious due to the frequent media-coverage of violence-episodes. A minority have been exposed to violence. About 1/3 reports that they are anxious because of their own experience with violence. Anxiety of violence is common in Oslo, and a majority of the youths use strategies to avoid violence

En brukerundersøkelse blant langtidsplasserte ungdommer i barneverninstitusjonene

I denne artikkelen presenteres resultater fra den første landsomfattende brukerundersøkelsen som er gjennomført blant ungdom i norske barneverninstitusjoner. Følgende tre hovedproblemstillinger er belyst: 1) I hvilken grad ivaretas ungdommenes rettigheter mens de er på institusjon? 2) Utsettes ungdom for ulike former for overgrep i barneverninstitusjonene? 3)Hvordan beskriver ungdom det sosiale livet i og utenfor institusjonene? Halvparten av alle langtidsplasserte ungdommer i alderen 13 år og eldre svarte på spørreskjemaundersøkelsen høsten 2005. Resultatene viser et sammensatt bilde når det gjelder ivaretakelse av rettigheter på institusjon. Et stort flertall av ungdommene ga uttrykk for kvalitativt gode relasjoner til de ansatte i institusjonene, men noen få rapporterte at de er utsatt for ulike typer overgrep. Få opplever institusjonen som et lukket rom. De fleste oppga at ansatte i institusjonene stiller opp for dem i samarbeidet med skolen, og at ansatte hjelper dem med å delta i fritidsaktiviteter. Et stort flertall oppga at de hadde flere venner, både i og utenfor institusjon

Nurses’ experiences of transitions of older patients from hospitals to community care. A nation-wide survey in Norway

Moving older patients from hospitals to community services is a critical phase of integrated care. Yet there has been little large-scale research on the quality of these transitions. We investigated how Norwegian nurses working in community care services (N = 4,312) and at in-patient wards at hospitals (N = 2,421) experienced the quality of transitions of older patients from hospitals to community care. We tested hypotheses derived from qualitative research and consistent with predictions, we found that compared to hospital nurses, the nurses working in community care experienced lower quality of patient transitions and were less satisfied with information exchange on patients’ condition and needs. Further, when comparing groups of community nurses, we confirmed the hypothesis that nurses in home nursing were more dissatisfied with the quality of transitions and information exchange than nurses in nursing homes. We conclude that hospital nurses should have more face-to-face or telephone contact with community nurses, and specifically with home nurses. Further, we suggest that means are implemented to promote a mutual understanding of the older patients’ pathway from one service to the other, and to improve co-ordination across the services

Caring for older parents in Norway - How does it affect labor market participation and absence from work?

As the population ages, younger generations will increasingly be called upon to provide informal care to their aging parents. To prepare for this development, it is essential to understand how employees combine the dual responsibilities of work and caring for aging parents. By analyzing data collected in Norway in 2022 from a nationally representative sample of 6049 respondents, aged 35 to 67, we investigated how caring for older parents affects labor market participation and work absence. We provide descriptive statistics and conduct analyses with structural equation modeling. These analyses indicated that caregiving had no substantial impact on overall participation in the workforce. However, employees did use work absences to assist their parents. We differentiate between using holidays, compensatory time, and three types of formal leave: paid, unpaid, and sick leave. More than a third of the formal leave was taken as sick leave. Women were moderately more likely to use work absence to care for their parents. We conclude that caregiving for older parents currently has little effect on work participation in Norway and attribute the favorable situation in Norway to its comprehensive public elderly care system. However, a contributing factor is Norway's generous sick leave policy. Although intended for use when employees are sick themselves, sick leave is used by employees to provide care to aging parents. Sick leave seems to act as a safety valve. To mitigate the effects of informal care on work participation, welfare states may create conditions that allow employees to combine work and informal care without resorting to unauthorized sick leave. A solution could be to extend the existing support scheme for employees with young children to those providing care for their aging parents

Help and Care to Older Parents in the Digital Society

This study examines the extent and predictors of employees’ help and care to their old parents and aims to contribute to policy development enabling employees to combine full-time work and caregiving to parents. Analyzing responses from 3332 Norwegian employees aged between 45 and 67 years with at least one living parent, we identified frequencies of different help and care types and tested competing predictors. Assistance with digital technology was frequent, and various types of practical support were common, but personal care provision was rare. Parents’ health and parents living alone were substantial predictors. Public home care services seemed insufficient and were associated with employees providing more help and care. The findings emphasize the family as a comprehensive care provider when the welfare state falls short. The study concludes that adult children play a critical role in helping older people cope with limited public services and challenges posed by the digital society

After Hospital: Should Older Care-Needing Patients Be Transferred to Their Homes or to an intermediate Care Institution?

In most European countries, communities need to provide health and socialcare services to an increasing number of severely ill patients discharged from hospitals. We investi-gated whether nurses in hospitals and in the communities’ health and social care services experiencedthat the administration in the municipalities allocated older patients the right type of services afterhospital discharge. Methods: We used data from Norway, with a qualitative pilot study and quantita-tive analysis (structural equation modeling) of surveys involving 2431 nurses on inpatient wards inacute hospitals and 4312 nurses working in nursing homes or home nursing. Results: Dissatisfactionwas widespread with the use of patients’ homes the first days after hospital discharge. Among nursesworking in hospitals, 38% were commonly or very commonly disagreeing with the use of the patient’shome after hospital discharge, 25% among home nurses, and 18% among nurses in nursing homes.Home nurses were more prone to oppose the use of patients’ homes if they also experienced thattheir service had inadequate staffing or inadequate medical equipment. Conclusions: This researchindicates conflicting priorities between the bureaucracy and nurses involved in actual work witholder patients. From the nurses’ perspective, the municipalities’ administration was offering too fewolder patients short-term-stay in an intermediate care institution as part of the clinical pathway fromhospital to home. However, providing more recourses to home nursing would improve their abilityto provide sufficient care to older patients discharged from hospital.publishedVersio

For få på jobb? Sykepleierbemanning i sykehjem og hjemmesykepleien

Artikkelen oppsummerer statistikk og forskning over sykepleierbemanning i norske sykehjem og hjemmesykepleietjenester og viser at det er en stor og økende mangel på sykepleiere i disse tjenestene. For få sykepleiere på jobb fører til store arbeidsbelastninger og går ut over kvaliteten. Ifølge OECD er helse- og omsorgstjenestene i Norge bedre bemannet med sykepleiere enn mange andre land, men disse sammenligningene gir et overdrevent positivt bilde av sykepleierbemanningen i Norge. I sammenligninger av OECD-land telles kun antall yrkesaktive sykepleiere per 1000 innbyggere. Det tas ikke hensyn til variasjon i utbredelsen av deltidsarbeid, sykefravær og permisjoner, ulik organisering av tjenestene og arbeidsdelingen mellom tjenestene og familien