ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to explore nurses' experiences of informing relatives to critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU).MethodThe study was descriptive with a qualitative approach. Nine nurses were interviewed. The study took place in a university hospital in the midst of Sweden. An interview guide was used, designed in consensus with the study questions. Data was analyzed via qualitative content analysis.FindingsMeeting and preparing relatives at the arrival at the ICU seemed valuable and led to safety and participation among relatives.

When going through a stem cell transplantation a patient is forced to undergo protective isolation to inhibit risk of opportunistic infections related to the low leucocyte count as a result of aggressive pre-transplant chemotherapy treatment. Protective isolation has shown to have an impact on patient experiences during treatment and the aim of this study is to elucidate experiences of protective isolation of patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and to deduce patient perceptions of the role of nurses in protective isolation care. The presented study was performed as a mixed qualitative and quantitative survey at a hematopoietic ward in Sweden. Results were analyzed by Mayring (2000) and by descriptive frequency charts and show that patients in protective isolation experience alienation, necessity, safety and anxiety with regards to their protective situation. Considering the role of nurses patients perceive their role to be attendant, informant and acting as an executioner of medical implementations.

Background: The abortion issue raises many ethical, moral and religious aspectsand is therefore well debated worldwide. In the care for an abortion seeking woman, it isimportant that the nurse find a balance between her and the woman's moral opinions aboutabortion in the quest to achieve good care.Aim: The aim of this study was to describe nurses? experiences of caring for womenundergoing abortion.Methods: Literature review based on ten original articles.Results: Literature review's results highlights two key themes: nurse?s experience of anemotional roller coaster as well as difficulties and challenging experiences at work inabortion care. These two themes consists of three subthemes: to get support in the workthrough to vent thoughts and feelings, how strain and stress affects the nurse's work and as anurse learn to accept the woman?s choice.Discussions: Within abortion care nurses find it difficult dealing with theemotional roller coaster that can occur while they strive to maintain an ethical andprofessional approach.

BACKGROUND: One of the nurse?s areas of responsibility is to relieve suffering. Research has shown that nurses give an indication of an emotional load in the interaction with dying patients. This means that patients need of relieved suffering gets disregarded because of nurse?s fear of the unknown.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how health care staff, in dementia care, feel that their work situation is affected by using two methods which are specifically designed for use in work with elderly persons suffering from dementia: validation and reminiscense.To examine this, we used a qualitative research method in the form of semistructured interviews with 6 assistant nurses/nurses. These nurses work in a living with dementia targeting which have recently applied the above two methods. Of the results reveals that nursing staff feel positive effects in their work through the use of validation and reminiscense. Examples of these positive effects are greater inclusiveness and strengthen relations in the staff group, strengthen relations between staff and residents, reduced medication of soothing medicine and improved communication with the persons suffering from dementia. The results show that nursing staff feel that it can be difficult to absorb the working methods, the importance of sufficient time and continuous guidance in the exercise of the methods and the need for a genuine interest for them to generate positive effects.

Background:Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a complex clinical condition. The higher survival rate after heart attack and other heart diseases, plus aging population, has led to more CHF patients. Symptoms can have negative impact on exercise capacity, ability to perform activities of daily living and quality of life. Heart failure clinics have been established to help better quality of life. Helping to stabilize and maintain patients´ health can reduce the need of hospital admission.

Abstract på svenska: Bakgrund: Studier har visat att humor är en betydelsefull faktor inom hälso- och sjukvård och att olika former av humor kan skapa en känsla av välbefinnande. I interaktionen mellan patienter och sjuksköterskor har skratt och humor visat sig ge positiva effekter vad det gäller att skapa en avslappnad atmosfär. Syfte: Syftet med studien är att belysa humors betydelse i mötet mellan patienter och sjuksköterskor. Metod: Studien är en systematisk litteraturstudie som baseras på 8 utvalda och granskade artiklar. Resultat: Sex huvudkategorier framkom under artikelanalysen, Humorns betydelse för mötet mellan patienter och sjuksköterskor, Humor som copingstrategi för patienter och sjuksköterskor, Humor som försvarsmekanism, Sjuksköterskors användning av humor i mötet med patienter, Humor som arbetsredskap i komplicerade omvårdnadssituationer samt Vid vilka möten bör humor undvikas.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the view of funding and sponsorship of culture within Swedish governmental cultural policy. The main issue is to discover changes in attitude towards funding and sponsorship of culture by comparing the discourse of cultural policy in the 1970s with the discourse of cultural policy in the 1990s. The theoretical and methological starting point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory. Another theoretical starting point is Danish cultural policy reasearcher Dorte Skot-Hansens theories of the development of cultural policy in the Nordic countries, and Norman Faircloughs, of critical discourse analysis, theory of the marketization of discourse. Four governmental cultural policy documents, two from the 1970s and two from the 1990s, are analysed through a model loosely based on Laclaus and Mouffes idea of nodalpoints and elements constituting a discourse.

The market for eco-labelled products has developed rapidly from the early nineties in Sweden. There is a full variety of environmentally friendly products on the market today, and perhaps organic food is the most popular alternative. Eco-clothes have not reached the same amount of success as other eco-labelled products on the Swedish market. In this essay I will discuss and analyze which factors that have influenced green consumers attitude and behavior towards eco clothing. Four interviews with green consumers in Karlstad have been done in order to explore consumers attitude and behavior.

The increased media clutter requires of brand managers to be innovative and creative in their choices of marketing communications in order for brands to be salient in the minds of consumers. Recent studies emphasize incongruent marketing as a means of "standing out" from this competitive clutter and reaching existing and new potential customers. The aim of this thesis is to examine the effects of brand incongruent sponsorships (sponsorships which are incongruent with established brand associations) on consumer response to well-established brands from the perspective of high and low levels of loyalty. A quantitative survey was conducted and the results show that incongruent sponsorships improve brand attitude, brand interest and brand credibility, while not affecting ad attitude, purchase intention and word-of-mouth intention for customers of low loyalty. For highly loyal customers the findings were that brand attitude, brand interest, brand credibility, purchase intention and word-of-mouth intention remained unchanged while ad attitude decreased.

AimThe aim of this study was to try to understand youngsters and their attitude to alcohol in the countryside and in a large city. The questions at issue have been: How do youngsters from the countryside, who drink, and do not drink alcohol, view the school- family- and friendsituation? How do youngsters from a large city, who drink, and do not drink alcohol, view the school- family- and friendsituation? Can we understand youths? attitude to alcohol on basis of the factors: School, family and friends? Are there any differences and similarities?MethodInterviews have been implemented with four youngsters in a large city and in the countryside. To gain as much as possible from the interviews a questionnaire was distributed to two classes in year nine in the countryside, and one class in the large city. The interview material was analysed on the basis from earlier research and two theoretical models.ResultsAccording to the youngsters that drink, both in the countryside and the large city, the most common view in school was that high demands are put on the youngsters and that they should study more then they do.

This study explores how consumers' attitudes and intentions-to-buy towards an atypical product can be influenced by the presentation of the product and consumers shopping goals. Moreover, another product, which was shown together with the atypical piece, was analyzed in order to investigate context effects. The aim of the study is to provide insights into a rather unexplored subject and help retailers in presenting their assortment in a way which will create a better perception and intention-to-buy towards the assortment. The study was conducted with the help of two studies, the first one aimed to find an atypical item and to see how attitudes could be affected by differences in presentation by comparing it with a typical item within the same category. The second study used the identified atypical piece in order to see the how attitude and intention-to-buy could be altered by presentation and consumer shopping goals.

Suicide and attempted suicide frequently occur in society today and represent a major public health problem. In inpatient psychiatric care the nurse have a central role when caring for suicidal patients. Few systematic studies exists that address the nurse?s practical work with these patients. The purpose of this study was therefore to describe the nursing care of suicidal patients as it was perceived by registered clinical expert nurses.

This essay is a comparison according to the ideological thoughts about womens position in the society of Mao Zedong och Josef Stalin. The material I have analysed is writings by Mao and Stalin, in a wide range from leaflets to orders to the armies of the states of China and the Soviet Union. The method I have used is an ideological analysis where the attitude towards women is the target for my survey. The attitude towards women generally was not unified in the world during the time for Mao and Stalin. In many countries the women was intended to take care of the children and the home, not be active in working and fighting.

Several studies show that the clinical reality in psychiatric care does not correspond to the demand of consumer participation from a variety of policy documents that has been produced recently. Studies also show that there is a lot to do in improving, patients with sever mental illness, becoming more involved in their own care. The nurse has a central role in this work. The Norwegian nursing theorist Jan-Ka?re Hummelvolls holistic, existentialistic model for psychiatric nursing were used as theoretical ground.The aim of this study was to examine how nurses in psychiatric outpatient units, caring for patients with psychotic disorders, experiences consumer participation.Qualitative phenomenological method was used.