School can be an effective environment for achieving a more equal health among children and adolescents, since many individuals can be reached by the health promoting work in the school. In the year of 2000 a project in Skåne was started for the development of health promoting schools. The health promoting projects however, have shown to be of short duration. So, as an alternative, the integration of the health in school ought to be tried. The aim of this study is to give examples how health promoting schools can strengthen their profile.

School can be an effective environment for achieving a more equal health among children and adolescents, since many individuals can be reached by the health promoting work in the school. In the year of 2000 a project in Skåne was started for the development of health promoting schools. The health promoting projects however, have shown to be of short duration. So, as an alternative, the integration of the health in school ought to be tried. The aim of this study is to give examples how health promoting schools can strengthen their profile.

The aim of this study was to investigate how school personnel work with preventive and health promoting efforts to motivate young people to achieve interest in physical activity and nutrition awareness. Further the aim was to describe the possibilities and difficulties that school personnel experience in their work.  The research questions were: How do school personnel describe their health promoting work at school? In a health promotion perspective, what efforts do school personnel think is important when it comes to nutrition and physical activity? What possibilities do school personnel experience with health promoting efforts? What difficulties do school personnel experience with health promoting efforts?The study has a qualitative approach in which seven individual interviews were conducted with personnel at a secondary school. The respondents worked with different aspects which broadened the perspective.

Good conditions in the workplace, fairness in the workplace and the social differences contribute to a general improvement in public health. A health-promoting leader is working to create a workplace that promotes health, supports its employees and contributes to their wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to investigate the first-line managers in the city of Västerås experience and deal with their conditions and obstacles in the health-promoting leadership. A qualitative approach was chosen and the selection was six first-line managers working in three different areas of the City of Västerås. Managers were interviewed by an interviewguide and the material was analyzed with a manifest content analysis, with an inductive approach.

The personnel policy program for the employees in studied municipality includes guidelines for the working environment, saying that health promoting activities is offered to all employees.                              Objective: To investigate how these activities were used and how the staff perceived the activities offered. The aim was also to find out how well the information about current health promotion efforts reached the staff.Method: A qualitative approach was used in the form of interviews. The sample consisted of municipal employees from seven different work sites.  A total of 12 women aged 32-52 years participated. The interviews were recorded and a hermeneutic theory was used to interpret the results.Results: The results showed that most informants used some form of fitness activity. In most cases health care-time was used for anything from walking to organized workouts. The great barrier was lack of information and lack of trained and dedicated health motivators. In several cases, informants had no knowledge about what a health motivator is supposed to do. The informants own suggestions for health promotion interventions included stress management and foot care.Conclusion: The survey showed that respondents were poorly informed about which wellness activities the municipality offered. The result could also be interpreted as a communication gap between the local authority, health motivators and the employees. A request for group activities was detected.  .

Background: Ill-health related to unhealthy lifestyle is increasing and despite existing knowledge about healthy lifestyle it is difficult to change behaviour. Counselling in the primary health care is often superficial and without critical elements for behaviour change. Aim: The aim of this paper to elucidate interventions for change of lifestyle with respect diet and physical activity. Method: A literature review was carried out and ten scientific articles were analyzed and compiled in two main categories: design of these interventions and participation in them. Results: Education, decision making, goal setting, feedback, social support and follow-up were identified as critical elements for behaviour change.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of physical activity for people suffering from depression and which nursing interventions nurses can do to make this patients start to exercise. The method used, is a review of articles from Ci-nahl, Cochrane, Elin, PsycInfo, Pubmed and Science Direct, which were analyzed according to Polit och Hunglers criteria for scientific research. The result from the nine studies shows that physical activity has an antidepressive and anxiety reduc-ing effect. Interventions emerged is supporting, encouraging, activating and teach-ing about physical activity as health-promoting measure. Conclusion: Nurses can as an intervention introduce exercise as complementary treatment for people suffering from depression.

Good conditions in the workplace, fairness in the workplace and the social differences contribute to a general improvement in public health. A health-promoting leader is working to create a workplace that promotes health, supports its employees and contributes to their wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to investigate the first-line managers in the city of Västerås experience and deal with their conditions and obstacles in the health-promoting leadership. A qualitative approach was chosen and the selection was six first-line managers working in three different areas of the City of Västerås. Managers were interviewed by an interviewguide and the material was analyzed with a manifest content analysis, with an inductive approach.

With starting point in the increasing ill-health in Swedish working life today, in form of for example absence due to sickness and early retirement pension, and the knowledge that the working environment effects peoples health in a big extent, I found it very interesting to inquire into how people within the working life experience health promotion and how this can be developed. A qualitative method was used to receive a deeper understanding for the employees? experiences and data was collected through semi structured interviews with employees on a bank called Ikanobanken, in Älmhult. The result shows, among other things, that respondents find responsibility and the opportunity to influence the learning processes and development important. It also became clear that the respondents find participation, motivation, communication and safety essential factors when related to changes in health behaviours.

With starting point in the increasing ill-health in Swedish working life today, in form of for example absence due to sickness and early retirement pension, and the knowledge that the working environment effects peoples health in a big extent, I found it very interesting to inquire into how people within the working life experience health promotion and how this can be developed. A qualitative method was used to receive a deeper understanding for the employees? experiences and data was collected through semi structured interviews with employees on a bank called Ikanobanken, in Älmhult. The result shows, among other things, that respondents find responsibility and the opportunity to influence the learning processes and development important. It also became clear that the respondents find participation, motivation, communication and safety essential factors when related to changes in health behaviours.

This phenomenological study explores the mental health problems of asylum- seeking children in Sweden and highlights possible ways of meeting their needs. Open interviews with 13 clinically experienced psychologists were conducted.The results of the analysis suggest that experiences of trauma and separation, the child's developmental level, parental functioning and family dynamics contribute to the mental health problems of asylum- seeking children. When meeting these children the psychologists continuously face ethical dilemmas since the asylum-seeking process seems to aggravate the problems as well as complicate the use of traditional interventions. Promoting structure and activity, normalizing symptoms, educating about trauma and crisis, sharing and accepting anxieties and sometimes thoroughly working through traumatic experiences are treatment strategies found clinically useful. Systematic follow-up studies are needed to decide the effects of these interventions..

An individual´s health is an important quality and asset to the individual, as well as to organizations and communities. The health of a human being is affected by the whole life situation, where the work place forms a significant part. The work place is an arena that can contribute to creating ill-health. In the light of increasing work- related ill-health in our society, it is important today to work with health-promoting initiatives in order to improve the well-being of people. It is advisable that an appointed key person at the work place works with health-promoting efforts.

Iraq has in recent decades been with internal conflicts between ethnic groups. Despite the enormous wealth of natural resources, more than half of the population remains poor. War and corruption has led to lack of resources and worsening quality of the health sector leading to deteriorating health situation among the population. Womens role and experiences of health and health promotion is important in conflict affected countries to create health and well-being within the family. Objective: the objective of this study was to investigate the maternal experiece of promoting the health of children in an Iraqi context.Method:Aqualitative research methodology with semi-structured interviews was chosen.Six mothers from diffrent neighborhods in the city of kirkuk were interviewed.

Nilsson, P. (2005). Which manager qualities can be related to a health promotive leadership? A questionnaire study among managers at hospitals. (41 p.)AbstractPeople?s working life and individual health can be seen as strongly related to each other because people spend the most of their adult lives at their places of work.

Background: First Line Managers are expected to create a health promoting work environment. Research has shown that the prerequisites for accomplishing a health promoting leadership are not always the best. Aim: The aim was to elucidate the prerequisites for a health promoting leadership as First Line Manager at a University hospital in Sweden based on competence, role, support structures and own durability. Results: First Line Managers at the chosen hospital seems to have rather good conditions for conducting a health promoting leadership. All respondents did have a university degree and most thought that their competence corresponded well with the role.