ABSTRACTThe purpose of this thesis has been to increase the knowledge about the life situation for next of kin who are caring for the elderly and mentally disabled. Also, the impact of ?supportive actions? on the quality of life for the next of kin has been assessed. This study tried to answer the following questions:? How do next of kin perceive their every day life.? Do supportive actions lead to a better situation in your every day life.? Do supportive actions raise the quality of life for next of kinTo answer the questions above a qualitative method was used.

Aim: To investigate the quality of life and the social life situation, with special focus on the consequenses of fear of hypoglycemia (FoH), in Islet transplanted patients.Method: 11 patients were included, four women and seven men, who have been Islet tranplanted at Uppsala University Hospital during the years 2001-2009. Two questionaires, Short Form 36 (SF-36) and the Swedish version Hypoglycemia Fear Survey (Swe-HFS) were used to investigate the quality of life, in relation to fear of hypoglycemia. Also, telephone interviews were conducted to investigate the patients social life situation in relation to FoH, after Islet transplantation and were analysed using content analysis method.Results: The mean value for quality of life was lower than that in the normal population. Three out of ten patients experienced FoH. Three predominant themes were revealed, one theme associated with pre- transplant, was ?Struggle for control of Social Life Situation? and two themes associated with post-transplant, were ?Regain power and controll of  Social Life Situation? and ?At Peace with the balance between the Present and the Future?.Conclusion: The patients experienced improved control over social life situation and quality of life in relation to FoH may been improved following islet tranplantation..

Background: Each year approximately 30 000 people suffer from stroke in Sweden, often with substantial mental and physical consequences. Those who suffered from stroke handled the situation by mourning what they had lost and by accepting their changed body and life situation. For those who provide care for people who has suffered a stroke help and support was required. The caring science perspective was based upon caring and suffering. Aim: The purpose of this study was to describe family caregivers? experiences of caring for persons who had suffered a stroke.

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.

In the literature it is not possible to find something about Swedish UN Military Observers (MO) experience of life is changing after their service. The aim of this study was to investigate if this has happened. The selection is of type ?snowball?. Interviews were made with twelve MO by telephone, both male and female.

The aim of the study was to explore how persons with aphasiaexperience literacy and reading and writing. Seven persons with mild-moderateaphasia were interviewed. The interviews were recorded, transcribed andanalysed using qualitative content analysis. The analysis resulted in three mainthemes; A changed reading, A changed writing and How to adjust andaccommodate to new conditions. The most apparent aspect was that theinformants experienced that literacy had changed, regarding what and how theyread/write.

 By changing focus from the active blogger to the ex-blogger this study focuses on a part of the blogosphere that is generally overlooked, why bloggers stop blogging. 30 terminated blogs where studied and the ex-bloggers where contacted. Six main reasons why a blog is terminated was found: Changed life situation, The blog effecting private life, The blog effecting the professional life, Done with testing to blog, Blogging about an event, Done with the blog ? the logical termination. Outside the main focus of the study  it was also evident that most bloggers terminate a blog to put focus of one of their other blogs or start a new one.

Background: Patients with leg ulcer suffers often of woundpain. Healthcare professionals will strive after having knowledge and understanding for how woundpain influences the patient's quality of life. Aim: The aim is to elucidate the patient's experiences of pain at venous leg ulcer and the effects on their daily life. Method: The procedure has been a systematic literature overview with a systematic search in different databases. The search resulted in nine scientific articles.

The purpose of this study is to examine how EU-migrants visiting the social project Crossroads experience their life situation in the Swedish society. Two questions were formulated: (1) How do the respondents describe their situation when it comes to work, housing and social network? (2) How do the interviewees describe and experience the social project Crossroads? The method used was qualitative interviews conducted with five EU-migrants who visited Crossroads. The theoretical framework is the concept of integration and Bauböcks (1996) theoretical model of the ideal society. The results show that none of the interviewees had their own accommodation.

The purpose of this study is to describe children?s life issues. What kind ofquestions they have aboutlife, their thoughts about life. Another purpose of this study is to see the differences in how children?s thoughts about life have changed through the years.

The progress of chronic disorders such as heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease affects various aspects of life. They have an deep impact on patients´experience of health and wellbeing and their functional qualities and quality of life. Several studies have in an extensive way described heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in its own domain but few qualitative studies consider coexistence of the disorders from a caring science perspective. The aim was to describe the meaning of living with heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease from a lifeworld perspective. With a phenomenological and reflecting lifeworld approach it´s possible to describe eight patients daily experiences of living with severe and chronic disorders from their own narratives.

The purpose of this study has been to examine how elderly people in today?s society look upon themselves and experience their own aging. We have inquired answers to the following main questions: What main events during the life course are emphasized in the elderly?s stories about their lives, and in what way has it affected their experience of growing old? In what way have social relationships, interests and the experience of health changed during the life course? How do the elderly experience their own aging, and what emotions are expressed in the speech surrounding their life course? The results of the study have been analyzed and interpreted with the help of the life course theory, Erikson?s psychosocial development theory and the continuity theory. The results show that elderly people of today don?t feel their age.

Following is a study of fathers 'experiences of balance between work and home life. The method the researchers used was based on qualitative interviews aimed at describing father?s own experiences and values, which affects them. The researchers chose to specifically study situations where the fathers were faced with situations where their children needed to be cared for in the home because of a cold or similar illness since this is a situation that directly affects the time that was meant for work, but now risk being moved to areas of life that the researchers define as home life. This is to see whether the respondents felt that this situation affected the balance between work- and home life.

The aim of this study was to compare unemployed and workers' life situation and the way they cope with different situations and to determine their degree of Type A. We used two different instruments: Friedman and Rosenman?s Type A-test and Carver?s cope test. The total number of respondents amounted to 169 participants. The participants were selected from a convenience sample at the employment service and from three different companies.

ABSTRACTBackground: To be stricken with a cardiac infarction is among other things linked to different risk factors.  Many studies show that the participants in cardiac rehabilitation programs learn to deal with the risk factors, increase their quality of life and lessen the risk for re-infarction.Objective: To describe the lifestyle and perceived quality of life of the individuals after having participated in cardiac rehabilitation program and to see if they had maintained their results up to a year after having a cardiac infarction.Method: The 19 individuals who had participated in cardiac rehabilitation in 2010 after having had a cardiac infarction were asked to participate in the study. Everyone agreed to participate. The study was made analyzing the surveys, one a locally made, that the individuals had filled out four and eight months after cardiac infarction, and the other the generic Quality of life questionnaire EQ-5D, that the individuals had filled out two and twelve months after cardiac infarction. Result: The individuals have not changed their lifestyle after having participated in cardiac rehabilitation which can be interpreted that they have followed existing recommendations. The mean weight increased with one kilogram, no depression is shown and they stress less.