Background: Nursing staff use touch on a daily basis, often without reflecting over it. It is not only the touch itself that emerges, everyday nursing staff get involved in the meeting with patients. The use of touch can be divided in to different kinds of touch, due to its purpose these are instrumental- and expressive touch. Purpose: The purpose with the study was to illustrate what physical touch means for the meeting between patient and caregiver. Method: A literature review has been done, based on ten scientific articles and by these four domains emerged.

AbstractIntroductionOccurrence of bacteraemia and fungemia is a serious condition with high mortality and the incidence is increasing worldwide. The aim of this study was to survey the occurrence of bacteria and fungi in blood cultures from adult patients domiciled in the county of Gävleborg during one year and also to calculate the incidence and mortality in the same geographical area.MethodThis is a descriptive epidemiologic study, based on all episodes of blood cultures analyzed at the Microbiology laboratory, Gävle hospital during 2005. Patients from 20 years of age, domiciled in the county of Gävleborg at the date of drawing the blood culture, where included in the study. Criteria of exclusion were negative blood cultures and cultures which were classified as contaminants.ResultsAltogether there were 4 564 blood cultures analyzed, resulting in 524 (11 %) positive cultures for further study. There were 442 patients (48 % women) involved in 499 episodes with confirmed bacteraemia or fungemia.

Forensic psyhiatric care protects the society by giving patients care to diminish risks of serious crimes. In their work the nurses use different care methods to help and support the patient in managing his or her life situation. To clarify how a group of nurses describe the nursing process in forensic psychiatric care. A qualitative study based on interviews. Six nurses were interviewed about their work in four different forensic psychiatric care units.

- To be trapped in a roller-coaster That ?s how some of the patients are describing the situa- tion of living with heart failure. To be stuck in their home not knowing if they will have to seek care today and not knowing if they will have the energy to attend that birth- day party later this week.Each year 2-3% of the Swedish population are diagnosed with heart failure, which results in 30,000 new individu- als with the disorder. Cardiovascular disease is rapidly in- creasing in the world and before 2030, people with heart failure will increased by 100%. Our improved living condi- tions and better health have allowed us to grow older and made us more dependent on other types of care, care at home.Today the patients are only looking for changes in weight and if they have excessive water in their body.

The purpose of the study was based on scientific literature to describe the quality of life of persons who have undergone a total hip replacement. The method was a descriptive literature review. The results showed that pain was the most obvious change after surgery. Mild pain before surgery was strongly associated with mild pain after surgery. But despite less pain were experienced early, it took 1 year to achieve the full benefits of improved physical function.

Previous research and patient complaints to the Swedish Patient Support Committee shows that there is a lack of substance in the patient-nurse relationship. This may suggest that it can be difficult for health care to live up to health-care law which requires it to be of good quality, based on dignity and respect and designed so that the patient is an active participant and can make their own decisions when it comes to their health care. For a better understanding of what a dignified patient-nurse relationship is, this study aims to clarify what the patient values as good patient-nurse relationship and describe how they have experienced the patient-nurse relationship during their stay at an emergency care department. The study is a descriptive cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach, where the population consisted of patients who were cared for at an emergency care department in the County of Västmanland, Sweden during 2007. The sample consisted of 93 patients which were asked to answer a questionnaire.

Swedish healthcare are in need of radical changes to meet the requirements from both the government and the patients to create organisational working methods that better support the patients through their healthcare processes. Digitalization of patient data has been going on for decades in order to increase participation and understanding among patients in their care processes. However, availability of information does not ensure understanding. Therefore, resources should be devoted to create conditions to enable participation. The purpose of this study is to explore how visualization of patient data in the patient?s journal can affect the consultation in the encounter between the doctor and the patient.

Background: The majority of patients requiring medical attention experience some degree of pain. The nurses´ assessment of pain is crucial in reducing the patients suffering in a proper and timely manner. Previous studies have shown that the treatment of pain in a emergency situation is poorly managed. The patients´ pain experience is often under assessed and undertreated which leads to increased suffering for the patient. This results in higher costs for the health care system due to prolonged hospitalization.

Background The aim of palliative care is to improve the quality of life for both the patient and her next of kin during the patient?s end of life. Palliative care rests on the four cornerstones managing symptoms, communication and relationship, teamwork and relative support. The nurses? task is to assess the patients? physical, mental and spiritual needs according to these four cornerstones.Aim To assess nurses? experiences of treating patients at the end of life.Method Eleven academic journals that respond to the aim has been analyzed and synthesized in a literature review in order to summarize current research on the subject.

Cultural bias in health assessment has been asserted in various scientific reports. The aim of this study was to determine whether ethnicity effects how patients are represented in such medical certificates that are needed to obtain a certain Swedish social insurance. The setting was an analysis of 18 medical certificates for patients whose parents were born in Sweden, respectively of 18 medical certificates of patients whose parents immigrated to Sweden from non European countries. The main objective was comparison of the two groups to test for ethnical heteronormative representations of the patients and their parents. The method used is mainly based on critical discourse analysis in combination with Fowlers (1996) semantic tools used to decipher disparity in the discourse.

As a public nurse there is a great probability that you will meet patients that have had a myocardial infarction. We want to contribute to create a greater understanding of how a nurse can support and understand these people. The last 30 years the infarction care has made a big progress. Still many conceptions remain which means that for many people a myocardial infarction leads to a belief that this is the end of the working life, social life, sparetime activities and travelling. Due to this misbelief it is important that the nurse creates good conditions for the patient right from the start.

Background: Sleep is the most important human recovery process and research supports assumptions that sleep is an important component in the healing process. Lack of sleep can be the onset of certain diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Sleep is an integral part of basic nursing. It is important for nurses in hospitals to form a correct understanding of the patients? sleep since they among other things are responsible for administering ad lib hypnotic medication.

ABSTRACTAim. To describe intensive care nurses´ experiences of caring for patients with postoperative delirium after heart surgery.Background. Delirium is a common condition after heart surgery. Previous research has focused more on pathophysiology, incidence, etiology, prevention, detection and management, and less on how nurses caring for patients with delirium experience it.Design. A qualitative interview study.Method.

Background;Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a lung disease characterized by airway obstruction. Common signs of COPD are the slow process and shortness of breath on exertion. The most important treatment is to quit smoking. Most nurses, regardless of where they work, will meet these patients, often when the patients are having respiratory disorders. Aim;the aim of this study was to illuminate how patients with COPD describe the daily life based on how he/she experience and cope with the disease.

Breast cancer is the most common tumor disease among women in Sweden. About 7000persons, having a median age of 65, are diagnosed each year with this disease. Withmammography screening, breast cancer can be detected in an early stage which improves theoverall survival (OS). 20-30 % of the breast cancer tumors are overexpressing humanepidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2), which is a protein that stimulates cell proliferation.Trastuzumab (Herceptin®) is a humanised monoclonal antibody that targets the HER2-proteinand prevent the signals for cell proliferation.Trastuzumab has earlier been used for treatment of metastatic breast cancer. In the year of 2007trastuzumab was approved for adjuvant treatment of patients who has been medicated withsurgery and/or radiation.The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of adjuvant treatment with trastuzumab inHER2-positive breast cancer patients.