This thesis examines the organization Empower and their members, who consist of sex working women in Thailand. The purpose is to explore the more liberal point of view of prostitution and how the female members perceive Empower. Furthermore the study investigates if the organization can improve the sex workers empowerment. The study also delineates how these women reflect on their professional role as a sex working woman and whether the women relate to feminine discourses. The study is implemented in Chiang Mai, Thailand during the fall of the year 2010 and is based on qualitative methods like interview, focus group, observations and text analysis.

AbstractAim of the study: Aim of the study was to investigate whether there were any connections in time between different parts of care in patients with cardiac arrest and hypothermia treatment and cognitive and physical function six months after cardiac arrest and to investigate neurological outcome related to primary registered cardiac arrest rhythm after six months and if there were any changes in cognitive and physical functions as well as self-related health between discharge from hospital and six months after cardiac arrest.Method: The study included 39 patients admitted to three Swedish hospitals between 2008-2011. Cognitive and physical function was evaluated with Cerebral Performance Cathegory, CPC completed with Mini Mental State Examination, MMSE for cognitive function and Bartels Index, BI for physical function and Euroqol-VAS for evaluating the self-related health.Result:  A significant connection was shown between time to start hypothermia treatment and BI, patients with longer time showed improved physical function after six months.Majority of the participants (66,7 %) had Ventricular fibrillation/Ventricular tachycardia, VF /VT, as primary registered cardiac arrest rhythm and in this group CPC and BI was significant better compared with the asystole /Pulsless Electrical Aktivity, PEA group.CPC, MMSE, BI and Euroqol-VAS were all improved over time.Conclusion: Participants with VF /VT as primary registered cardias arrest rhythm had significant better cognitive and physical function 6 months after hypothermia-treated cardiac arrest compared with participants with asystole/PEA as primary registered rhythm. This shows the importance of access to defibrillators in public places in the society and in hospitals and optimal education of lay people and medical staff. Cognitive and physical function and self-rated health improves over time, which might be a very important reason to convey patients, relatives and medical staff to continue cognitive and physical rehabilitation. Keywords: Cardiac arrest, hypothermia, cognitive and physical function, wellbeeing.

 The number of hidden refugees in Sweden is estimated to be at least 15,000. The law, which only allows this group a very limited access to health care, can be considered to clash with the human rights and the ethical codes related to the health care professionals.The aim of the study was to examine how the personnel in public health care may experience treating hidden refugees and which ethical conflicts that may be connected to this. The study, which is of a qualitative descriptive design, is based on eight semi-structured interviews. The interviewees were trained nurses and mid-wives in an emergency room, a maternity ward and a health care centre for asylum seekers.The experience of treating hidden refugees amongst the informants was limited. The study proved that the knowledge of laws and guidelines regarding hidden refugees amongst the interviewed health care personnel was poor.

Background: Breastfeeding frequency decrease in Sweden and infants born preterm is a particularly vulnerable group to not be breastfed according to current recommendations. Mothers of preterm infants have an extra need of support from the health care system. Mothers' self-efficacy in breastfeeding affects the outcome of breastfeeding. Health professionals' attitudes to breastfeeding have an impact on the breast feeding support they provide to the mothers.Aim: To investigate whether an intervention could strengthen self-efficacy in breastfeeding among mothers of premature babies. A further aim was to investigate whether the intervention influenced health professionals' attitudes to breastfeeding.Method/Design: An experimental study with quantitative approach in the form of questionnaire survey was conducted.

Invandrade kvinnor i Handels. Föreställningar om arbetskraftsinvandrade kvinnor i Handelsnytt 1961-1976. (Immigrant women in Handels. Conceptions of labour immigrated women in Handelsnytt 1961-1976).The primary purpose of this thesis is to analyze the written conceptions of labour immigrated women in Handelsnytt, a Swedish Trade Union magazine. The analyses of the conceptions are based on theoretical categories of class, gender and ethnicity.

Launching and marketing a health food product is associated with larger problems than a launch of a traditional food product. There are several sales channels that can be used for a health food product, for example the product can be sold as a traditional food product, natural health food product or as a prescription drug. A smaller company can however experience problems while launching its product as a prescription drug because of the large costs associated with this particular sales channel. There is often no other alternative than to launch the product as a traditional food product, this can however create other problems because of the existing regulations on what can and cannot be mentioned in the marketing of a health food product. The limited amount of information about the product that can be enclosed together with it makes it hard for a company to differentiate and position it on the market.

Introduction: Reducing social inequality in health is a prioritized goal for public health on the global as well as the national and the local levels. Hälsoteket operates through health promotion to reduce inequality in health in the district of Angered in Göteborg, through the improvement of living habits and the wellbeing of the population.Aim: The aim of the study was to evaluate Hälsoteket in Angered through its participants? subjective experiences. Subsidiary aims were to explore participants? perceptions and opinions about Hälsoteket in Angered, how they perceive the health impact of their participation and their motivations for participating.Method: A qualitative method was used to fulfill the aim.

Background: Young adults undergo a phase in life when they try to become independent individuals and are expected to take responsibility. The transition to adult life, cause hardship for all young adults, but with concurrent mental illness this transition can be more complicated. The young adults may need support from their parents in connection with care.Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurses' perceptions of parental participation in the care of young adults with mental illness.Method: To describe the perceptions of a phenomenon, qualitative interviews with a phenomenographic approach were conducted. The interview texts were analyzed into five description categories and 10 perceptions. In the study, eight nurses were interviewed.Results: The result shows that parental participation in the care is based on the young adult's decision.

Aim: Through the review of scientific articles, this study aimed to identify which oral health-related quality of life instruments that have been used in studies to measure the oral health-related quality of life in older individuals and the application of such instruments.Method: The study is based on a systematic literature review, where 14 articles have been chosen and evaluated against a checklist. Result: The oral health-related quality of life instruments that have been used on individuals, 65 years and older, are OHIP-49, OHIP-14, OHIP-20 or OHIP-EDENT, GOHAI and OIDP. The instruments are used to examine factors associated with the oral health-related quality of life. Significant associations have been identified, among other things, between the number of teeth in static occlusion, dry mouth and the quality of the dentures, and oral health-related quality of life. Social and cultural associations have also been revealed.Conclusions: Today there exist several well functioning instruments that are used for research purposes.

The aim of this study was to understand how social workers deal with honour-related violence, with special focus on the processing from sheltered housing. Our qualitative interviews with social workers that work with this kind of problems show that there are both obstacles and opportunities in the processing from sheltered housing. On the negative side are the loneliness, the shame and the guilt that the girls may experience when they need to leave their families. The social services can both be an obstacles and an opportunity. When the girls need to create a new life in a new city they have a lot of opportunities and in the same time it is hard to get to know new friends when you don´t know the city or have much money.

I detta arbete fokuseras förhållandet mellan barn och kartor. Litteraturstudien behandlar vad en mental karta är, hur den formas och vilken funktion denna har. Här belyses också kartans roll i undervisningen. Möjligheter och svårigheter i arbetet med kartan lyfts fram. Vidare redovisas resultatet från studier gjorda i år fem och sju där elever på fri hand ritat kartor över olika områden.

This thesis is focused on what impact stall confinement has on a horse?s mental and physical welfare. It was of great interest to get a gathered picture of how Swedish horseowners had experienced having their horses in stall confinement. A survey study was conducted to achieve this. The survey included twelve questions which for example investigated the horses? age at the time of stall confinement, the length of stall confinement and their sexes.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether personality traits, self-esteem, performance-based self-esteem and demographic data relate to, and can explain the variation in psychological ill-health among students at Lund University. A questionnaire was distributed to students attending the Psychology program, Bio-technology program, Theologian program and Law program. There were 247 respondents to the questionnaire, mainly attending their second or third semester. General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), Rosenberg's Self- Esteem scale, Hallstens scale measuring performance-based self-esteem, questions relating to demographic data and a short version of the personality inventory scale Big Five were included in the questionnaire. Positive correlations were found between psychological ill-health and the variables neuroticism and performance-based self-esteem.

This thesis examines why working time preferences differ between workers and nations, and explains the effect of working time regulation and working time flexibility on negotiating work-life balance. In five separate sections the following working time issues are examined: the number of hours worked by workers in Europe; factors affecting individual working time preferences; how working time preferences are negotiated in the national industrial relations systems of Sweden, France and the United Kingdom; how the institutions of the European Union have influenced working time negotiations through the Working Time Directive; and the benefits and practices available to organisations implementing working time flexibility. Broadly this paper views working time preferences as being a highly personal and influenced by factors such as wages, taxation, culture (national and workplace) and non-work responsibilities. It is argued that negotiating a preferred working time pattern is essential to achieving work-life balance and when such a balance is achieved, workers are more healthy, motivated and committed to their employer. Essentially this provides an incentive for businesses to voluntarily implement working time flexibility beyond the regulatory standards..

With this study, our purpose has been to achieve profounded knowledge and understanding regarding the use of discretion among social workers specialized in social allowance issues. The Social Services Act, structured as a framework law in the Swedish context, provides the social worker with a certain degree of discretion, in order to enable accommodated decisions depending on client case specifics. This study problematizes these aspects of legal security, and our intention has been to examine which factors impact the assessments social workers carry out in statutory decisions of social allowance applications. To attain this, we narrowed down our intention into a number of distinct and delimitated research questions: (1) Which elements of the client case impact the social worker?s assessment? (2) Which external aspects influence the social worker?s assessments and decisions? (3) How do social workers decide the client?s credibility? In order to establish answers to our research questions, we have utilized a qualitative approach of research by exerting qualitative interviews in addition to a vignette study.