Animal-assisted therapy had its large breakthrough in the 1960-ties when a psychiatrist named Boris Levinson discovered the great advantages of involving animals in the treatment of patients. Therapy with animals involves that animals are used in a systematic way, in a person's process of treatment. The most distinguished companion animal used within this area is the dog, but horses, cats, rabbits, birds, dolphins and the most common farm animals are used in animal-assisted therapy. Most animals that are to be used for this specific purpose need to be trained in order to maintain their physical and mental health, but also to minimize the risks for the people that are involved. Most studies within this research area are focused on the positive effects on the patients and less on the effects on the animals.

Background A lot of children live in families where a parent is suffering from some kind of mental illness. As nurses we have to notice these children, when we meet patients with mental illnes.Aim The overall purpose of this study was to examine if and how the district/ psychiatric nurse acknowledge the child?s situation, when a parent is suffering from mental illness.Method A qualitative approach was chosen for this study. Six psychiatric nurses and seven district nurses were interviewed. Content analysis was used for the analysis.Result Four main themes appeard in the result: dialogs of different character, family focus, collaboration and report duty.

The aim of this study was to map out the quality of the treatment in the forensic outpatient care unity in Malmoe from a patient point of view. This target group, seriously mentally disordered law-offenders, has been neglected in the scientific research. This investigation will hopefully contribute to a positive change in this subject. To achieve a good understanding of this field a methodological triangulation was conducted which included an observational study, a pilotstudy and semistructured interviews. 14 patients and 10 staff members were interviewed.

That animals should be able to express their natural behaviours, even in captivity, has become a more important issue lately. Nowadays Zoos work much more with educating people and helping conservation projects for endangered species. This is two important reasons for making the environment as natural as possible for zoo animals. Both in captivity and in the wild capuchin monkeys have been seen to use tools such as stones and sticks to get food and are therefore seen as a natural and important behaviour for them. This study was carried out to evaluate a specific sort of environmental enrichment where a group of three capuchins had to use sticks to get different kinds of food out of bottles.

Background Nightingale attention that hygiene was an important task to prevent health- related infection. Today there are guidelines how hand hygiene should be followed, to prevent health- related infection. Good knowledge and education in hand hygiene and its consequences if it?s not followed is of great importance. Hand hygiene should be performed before and after the clean and the unclean work with patients and materials.

This study was a qualitative analysis of the covers of six lifestyle magazines, three addressed to women and three addressed to men. We have studied the cover photographs, the teasers and their relations. The purpose of this study was to answer the questions: According to the magazines, what are male interests and what are typical female interests? Who is the ideal man and who is the ideal woman? Is there a certain way you need to look to be able to be on a magazine cover? And how often do the magazines encourage you to consume? The study was based on thirty covers, five from each magazine. The Swedish magazines are VeckoRevyn, Amelia, Damernas Värld, King of Sweden, Café and the American version of GQ. We?ve used semiotics and rhetorical methods to analyze the material.

Ulla Isaksson (1916 ? 2000) wrote many novels, often with a woman or several women as protagonists. In Dit du icke vill (?Where Thou Willst Not?) from 1956 she depicts a crisis of faith in a woman, which would not have been successful had she chosen a contemporary setting. She uses an adequate historical framework, the prosecution of witches in Sweden in the 17th century, well documented in reliable sources.

Introduction: The conversation is one of the main components of the nursing process in psychiatric care. The preunderstanding on this research field is described based on theoretical concepts that together form the basis for understanding the study; nurse's role in psychiatric care, communication and caring relationship, as well as theories of the caring conversation and person-centered care. Research on the caring conversation as a theory and how it is experienced by patients existed, however, no research from the nurse's perspective was found.Aim: The aim of the study was to describe nurses' experiences of the caring conversation with patients in psychiatric open care units.Method: Qualitative research interviews were conducted with six nurses working in outpatient psychiatric care in the west region in Sweden. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and then analyzed according to the qualitative content analysis as described by Graneheim and Lundman (2004).Results: Four categories with related subcategories were distinguished throughout the analysis: The caring conversation, The importance of the care plan, Limitations and Caring based on the patients narrative.Discussion: An uncertainty about what caring conversation is and what it should contain creates uncertainty in the nurse's work. This results in a need for training for the individual nurse and the further research to obtain evidence for the importance of conversation in caring work.

Background: Individuals in pain is something that most nurses encounter on a daily basis. Chronic physical pain is often followed by psychological pain. The total effects of chronic pain are felt by the patient as well as by close ones. The findings showed that life changed radically after getting chronic pain. Individuals and closeones both had to take every day as it came, because the degree of pain was hard to predict and could worsen at any time off the day.

Stereotypic pacing is frequently observed in captive carnivores, however the underlying causes of this behaviour remain somewhat unclear. One of these possible causes are unpredictable feeding signals, which may give rise to frustration and subsequent pacing. Animal keepers at Nordens Ark had noticed that their Amur leopards had shown stereotypic pacing in connection to the passing of ATVs (All Terrain Vehicles) used by animal keepers primarly when feeding the animals in the park. The aim of this study was to investigate whether the stereotypic pacing of the two Amur leopards at Nordens Ark were affected by the introduction of a signal associated with feeding. The leopards were trained by classical conditioning to associate the sound of a siren with the delivery of food by an animal keeper.

Introduction: Anxiety and depression are common among patients enrolled in psychiatric outpatient care. Ear Acupuncture is an alternative form of treatment that has been shown to relieve anxiety and depression in previous studies.Aim: To evaluate ear acupuncture as a group treatment for depression and anxietyMethod: A psychiatric outpatient clinic has been offering group treatments with ear acupuncture for anxiety and depression for 5 weeks. Participants of the study have answered self-rating scales Montgomery Åsberg Depression Rating Scale, Beck Anxiety Inventory and Sheehan Disability scale before and after the treatment period. Material was collected in the period 2008-2012 and has been analyzed in SPSS.Results: Data from 31 patients were included in the study. The results from the study showed a significant difference, between the measurements before and after treatment, with a reduction of the average values in the three different scales.Summary: From this study, it is difficult to draw any conclusions about the effect of ear acupuncture.

Background: People who is close to patients suffering from incurable diseases experiences both suffering and grief. It is hard to be there for someone and at the same time handle your own grief. This can create feeling of anxiety, stress and guilt. Problem: Near related persons might not accept the further loss of someone near, the hope remains until it is final. They may not know the whole width of the situation, not acknowledge to the patient or himself how it is going to end.

The way towards an equal society, where both women and men has the same possibilities both private and in professional life, has been a long and still ongoing process. During my practical studies to become a recreation instructor I have noticed a difference between the children I have met in my workplace. What I saw was that girls and boys had a different approach towards their future, plus that the pedagogues at the school had different roles depending if they were men or women.In this study I have investigated which dreams and visions a group of after-school children has, plus how these distinguish between the genders. I have through group interviews, first three boys and then three girls, investigated how children look at their future focusing on career, spare time and familysituation. The questions have also focused on how children look at the schools pedagogues with gender as a premiss.My result shows that the children's vision on their future tends to look different between the genders.

Background: Throughout life, sexuality is a central aspect of being human and to experience a full and healthy. Several diseases and treatments can cause problems related to sexuality and sexual health. Despite this, research has shown that nurses, for various reasons choose not to take up the subject with their patients. Aim: The aim of this literature-based study was to illuminate nurses' experiences of talking with patients about sexuality and sexual health. Method: A literature-based study where both qualitative and quantitative studies, have been used.

Introduction: Breast pain, mastalgia, is a common problem for many women. The pain can cause so much concern that the woman seeks help in health care. The cause of concern is often that that the pain may be due to breast cancer. Women with mastalgia are referred for mammography to investigate the cause of the pain. Experience says that the mammography is mostly normal.Aim: The aim of the study was to get an overall picture of the results of the mammograms performed on Mammography SU / Sahlgrenska in 2011.