Sjuksköterskors möte med familjer i BUP
s mellanvård
Background: ?Transitional care? is a new form of care in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) in Sweden. The level of care, between outpatient and inpatient, has been developed to meet children/adolescents and their families in a different way than in the traditional outpatient and inpatient treatment. The contact offered can be intense with frequent contact and also with more time set aside for every occasion. The nurse, who is one of the categories of personnel involved in the multidisciplinary team works largely in other contexts than in the therapy room at the clinic or on the ward. Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate nurses´ perceptions about the characteristics of their encounters with the families who got in contact with CAMHS in ?transitional care?. Method: Six nurses were interviewed about their perceptions of what characterized their encounters with the families. The analysis was conducted by a phenomenographical method in seven steps. The perceptions were presented in categories in an ?outcome-space?. Results: The results showed that nurses were uncertain about what characterized their encounters with families in ?transitional care?. The nurses perceived there was a specific alliance building that characterized them in their encounters. They also started from a chosen perspective and used core competencies in their encounters with families. Reflection and clinical implication: The result provide a basis for reflections on what is the specific nature of nurses relational work in CAMHS ?transitional care? grounded in the theoretical starting points for the profession. Keywords: CAMHS, transitional care, nurse, family, caring science, phenomenography.