Cross-sectional associations between occupational factors and musculoskeletal pain in women teachers, nurses and sonographers

A. Technical measurements of the physical workload. (DOCX 18 kb

Losing independence : the lived experience of being long-term sick-listed

BACKGROUND: Sickness absence is a multifaceted problem. Much is known about risk factors for being long-term sick-listed, but there is still little known about the various aftermaths and experiences of it. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe, analyze and understand long-term sickness-absent people's experiences of being sick-listed. METHODS: The design was descriptive and had a phenomenological approach. Sixteen long-term sickness-absent individuals were purposively sampled from three municipalities in Sweden in 2011, and data were collected through semi-structured, individual interviews. The interview questions addressed how the participants experienced being sick-listed and how the sick-listing affected their lives. Transcribed interviews were analysed using Giorgi's phenomenological method. RESULTS: The interviews revealed that the participants' experiences of being sick-listed was that they lost their independence in the process of stepping out of working society, attending the mandatory steps in the rehabilitation chain and having numerous encounters with professionals. The participants described that their life-worlds were radically changed when they became sick-listed. Their experiences of their changing life-worlds were mostly highly negative, but there were also a few positive experiences. The most conspicuous findings were the fact that stopping working brought with it so many changes, the participants' feelings of powerlessness in the process, and their experiences of offensive treatment by and/or encounters with professionals. CONCLUSIONS: Sick-listed persons experienced the process of being on long-term sickness absent as very negative. The negative experiences are linked to consequences of stopping to work, consequences of social insurance rules and to negative encounters with professionals handling the sickness absence. The positive experiences of being sick-listed were few in the present study. There is a need to further examine the extent of these negative experiences are and how they affect sick-listed people's recovery and return to work. Long-term sickness absence; sick leave; experiences; interviews; phenomenology; Sweden

The effect of a short educational intervention in social insurance medicine : A randomized controlled trial

Aim To evaluate the effect of an educational intervention in social insurance medicine with Registered Nurses. Design Randomized controlled trial. Methods The trial was performed in 20 primary healthcare centres in Central Sweden. The centres were randomly assigned as intervention or control. All Registered Nurses working with telephone nursing at the centres were invited (N = 114); out of these 100 agreed to participate and responded to a questionnaire at the beginning and end of the trial. Fourteen questions in the questionnaire dealt with professional background and were used as exposure variables and were analysed using nominal logistic regression. Results Registered Nurses in the centres randomly assigned for the intervention experienced handling sick leave questions as less problematic after the intervention than those in the control group. This indicated that the intervention was associated with a positive effect. However, due to the rather small study population, the effect was inconclusive.Authors in thesis list of papers: Lännerström L, Holmström K I, Svärdsudd K, &amp; Wallman TTitle in thesis list of papers: The effect of a short educational intervention in social insurance medicine: A randomised controlled trial</p

Losing independence : the lived experience of being long-term sick-listed

BACKGROUND: Sickness absence is a multifaceted problem. Much is known about risk factors for being long-term sick-listed, but there is still little known about the various aftermaths and experiences of it. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe, analyze and understand long-term sickness-absent people's experiences of being sick-listed. METHODS: The design was descriptive and had a phenomenological approach. Sixteen long-term sickness-absent individuals were purposively sampled from three municipalities in Sweden in 2011, and data were collected through semi-structured, individual interviews. The interview questions addressed how the participants experienced being sick-listed and how the sick-listing affected their lives. Transcribed interviews were analysed using Giorgi's phenomenological method. RESULTS: The interviews revealed that the participants' experiences of being sick-listed was that they lost their independence in the process of stepping out of working society, attending the mandatory steps in the rehabilitation chain and having numerous encounters with professionals. The participants described that their life-worlds were radically changed when they became sick-listed. Their experiences of their changing life-worlds were mostly highly negative, but there were also a few positive experiences. The most conspicuous findings were the fact that stopping working brought with it so many changes, the participants' feelings of powerlessness in the process, and their experiences of offensive treatment by and/or encounters with professionals. CONCLUSIONS: Sick-listed persons experienced the process of being on long-term sickness absent as very negative. The negative experiences are linked to consequences of stopping to work, consequences of social insurance rules and to negative encounters with professionals handling the sickness absence. The positive experiences of being sick-listed were few in the present study. There is a need to further examine the extent of these negative experiences are and how they affect sick-listed people's recovery and return to work. Long-term sickness absence; sick leave; experiences; interviews; phenomenology; Sweden

Mänskliga rättigheter ochrätten till hälsa. En analys av anmälningar till patientnämnderna i VästraGötaland

Denna rapport visar att patienters rättigheter är otydliga när det gäller rätten till hälso- och sjukvård. Otydligheten kan leda till att hälso- och sjukvården framstår som rättsosäker. Det finns möjligheter att förbättra kvalitet, trygghet och patientsäkerhet, där anmälningar från patienter och närstående kan utgöra ett värdefullt underlag. En av rapportens slutsatser är att det finns ett behov av en mer patient- och personcentrerad hälso- och sjukvård. I denna rapport beskrivs resultaten från ett forskningsprojekt där anmälningar till patientnämnderna i Västra Götaland analyserats med fokus på mänskliga rättigheter. Ett strategiskt urval av 170 anmälningar som patienter eller närstående lämnat till patientnämnderna under år 2015 har här analyserats. Resultaten beskrivs i fyra delar. I den första delen presenteras beskrivande statistik för anmälningarna. Den andra delen beskriver innehållet i anmälningarna, vilket handlar om att inte ha tillgång till hälso- och sjukvård, brister i kontinuitet och uppföljning, felaktigheter eller vårdskador till följd av hälso- och sjukvård, brister i kommunikation och samverkan, bemötande, attityder och förhållningssätt i möten med hälso- och sjukvårdspersonal, samt hälso- och sjukvård som går emot patientens vilja. Därefter följer den del där anmälningarna analyserats utifrån ett patient- och mäniskorättsperspektiv. Här beskrivs fem teman som berör rätten till hälsa och patienters rättigheter vid ohälsa och sjukdom, rätten till hälso- och sjukvård och patienters rättigheter vid akuta tillstånd, rätten till god och säker hälso- och sjukvård och patienters säkerhet, rätten till värdighet och ett bra bemötande, samt hälso- och sjukvårdspersonalens rättigheter. I den fjärde och sista delen av resultaten har anmälningarna granskats utifrån ett normkritiskt och intersektionellt perspektiv. Här framträder vissa grupper av patienter som mer sårbara än andra, och den utsatthet och maktaspekter som framträder i analysen beskrivs. I anmälningarna till patientnämnderna framkommer situationer där patienters rättigheter brister i möten med hälso- och sjukvården, där det kan vara svårt för patienter att utkräva sin rätt. Anmälningarna synliggör patienters upplevelser av att kvalitet, trygghet och patientsäkerhet brister, och patientnämndernas verksamhet spelar en viktig roll i att synliggöra dessa brister för att kunna bidra till förbättringar inom hälso- och sjukvården. För att säkerställa de mänskliga rättigheterna och rätten till hälsa behöver hälso- och sjukvården anpassas utifrån invånares behov. Anmälningarna visar att det ibland finns brister i hälso- och sjukvårdens förmåga att utgå från en helhetssyn på patienten. Enskilda personer är sårbara i kontakt med hälso- och sjukvården, och patienters utsatthet och olika maktförhållanden mellan patienter och hälso-  och sjukvårdspersonal behöver hanteras ansvarsfullt för att inte skapa ojämlikheter eller leda till upplevelser av diskriminering. Ett professionellt bemötande kräver också kommunikativ kompetens och empati hos hälso- och sjukvårdspersonal. En slutsats av detta är att det finns behov av en mer patientcentrerad hälso- och sjukvård, som tydligare beaktar enskilda personers förutsättningar och behov, liksom organisatoriska förbättringar som främjar patientens vårdkedja och samverkan mellan vårdverksamheter

Possible causes of experiencing problems with sick leave questions in telephone nursing

BACKGROUND: Registered nurses at primary health care centres in Sweden receive about 20 million telephone calls annually. Questions related to sick leave occur regularly. Previous studies conclude that those calls often are perceived as problematic. The aim of this study was to explore factors associated with problems regarding sick leave questions in telephone nursing. METHODS: A questionnaire was distributed to all registered nurses (n = 185) working with telephone nursing in 26 Swedish primary health care centres, of whom 114 (61.6%) responded. Based on the results of a Spearman correlation analysis a logistic regression analysis was performed of significant exposure variables on outcome (perceived problems). RESULTS: Significant exposure variables were: experience of telephone nursing, age, being educated in social insurance medicine, and frequency of telephone calls with sick leave questions. Young age was associated with more problems than old age. Those having education in social insurance medicine reported fewer problems than those who had not, and so did those having few telephone calls with sick leave questions as compared with those who had many. CONCLUSIONS: Young age, lack of education in insurance medicine, and high frequency of sick leave questions increased the perceived problem level in telephone nursing

Choosing not to choose - patients’ justification of a disengaged choice of primary care provider

A key underpinning of choice of health care provider is that patients make active and informed decisions which stimulate quality competition. By imitating the principles of a market in the steering of health care, patients thus assume the role of consumers. Few patients however neither consider alternative providers nor seek information about quality. The aim of this study was to investigate if and how patients engage in the role of being active and informed consumers in the setting of primary care, and how they argue for their choice. The study was based on semi-structured interviews with 18 respondents in a municipality in mid-Sweden. Respondents were purposefully sampled and interviews were analysed using an inductive thematic approach. Findings demonstrated that patients disengaged from choice by arguing, for instance, that they were satisfied with their current provider or because they perceived no differences in quality. Overall, results were in line with previous studies performed in US and European hospital settings, indicating that patients present some similar arguments regarding disengagement from choice irrespective of level of care or geographical setting. Arguments specifically related to the primary care level were that patients found it more important to achieve continuity in the patient-doctor relationship than ‘shopping around’ for the best provider, or that they desired more profiled services to actively make a choice. In contrast to previous literature, patients refuted the ‘patient-consumer’ role by referring to, for instance, the belief that care should be of equal quality independent of what choice they made