| 1. |
- Marklund, Bertil, et al.
(författare)
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Promoting medical self-care : evaluation of a family intervention implemented in the primary health care by pharmacies
- 1999
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Ingår i: Family Practice. - : Oxford University Press. - 0263-2136 .- 1460-2229. ; 16:5, s. 522-527
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Medical self-care is the range of behaviours undertaken by people to promote or restore health when dealing with a medical problem.Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate medical self-care effects of a family intervention implemented in primary health care by pharmacies, in terms of non-professional and professional involvement.Methods: The intervention was implemented in one of two primary health care areas during a 4-month period and involved consecutive families acting as an intervention (IG, n = 94) or a control (CG, n = 93) group. Eight telephone interviews were conducted with each family. The families were asked about complaints of illness, how long they prevailed and how they were treated.Results: The results showed (P < 0.05–0.0001) that the IG had more medical problems (931 versus 621) compared with the CG, were less hospitalized (4 versus 10), stayed at home more to take care of sick children (84 versus 40), read more medical brochures (121 versus 31), tried more non-medical treatments (228 versus 116), and had fewer visits to the department of paediatrics but more visits to primary health care (69 and 98 versus 90 and 68).Conclusions: Due to the non-randomization procedure, some caution with regard to generalization of the results must be taken, but they are in concordance with established knowledge of the usefulness of medical self-care. The results indicate that a brief intervention for families can change the use of health authorities. It therefore seems meaningful to implement the intervention in a more comprehensive way in the primary health care setting, while at the same time trying to implement it as a large-scale randomized experimental study, comprising aspects such as the individual's need for care, the use of the right organization level and the assessment of economic costs and savings.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Andersson, Staffan, 1969-, et al.
(författare)
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ATTRACT - International collaboration to help students succeed
- 2011
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The issues of student success and retention are vital for contemporary engineering education. Comparisons and collaborations between different institutes can help the improvement of practice. ATTRACT (Enhance the Attractiveness of Studies in Science and Technology) is a European project within this field. The retention part of the project highlights four areas for further discussion - a common vocabulary for discussing retention issues, common measurements of retention and student success, gaining better knowledge about incoming students, and evaluating and sharing practice.
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| 4. |
- Bolin, Malin, 1974-
(författare)
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The importance of organizational characteristics for psychosocial working conditions and health
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The importance of organizations for understanding differences in the working conditions and health of employees is often emphasized but rarely explored empirically. The general aim of this thesis is to describe organizational characteristics of workplaces, and to assess their impact on the psychosocial working conditions and health of employees. In modern working life, it is assumed that employees' working conditions and health are affected by a general transformation of workplaces from bureaucracy to post-bureaucracy. The organizational data used are based on structured interviews with managers at workplaces in different types of operations in mid-Sweden, whereas the individual data consist of a questionnaire to all employees working in the participating workplaces, resulting in a dataset of 90 workplaces and 4306 individuals. Descriptive analysis was carried out for comparison of organizational characteristics in different types of operations, while multilevel analysis was applied to investigate the magnitude of the organizational impact on psychosocial working conditions, and to analyze associations between organizational characteristics, psychosocial working conditions and health. The results showed that the workplaces were mainly displayed by a combination of bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic characteristics, and these were unequally distributed between types of operations. A systematic variation in the psychosocial working conditions and health of employees was found between workplaces, and the variation in psychosocial working conditions was attributed to several organizational levels. The variation between workplaces was explained by both organizational characteristics of the workplaces and individual characteristics of the employees. Formalization, centralization, job enrichment, individual responsibility, soft control systems, and performance control were associated with psychosocial working conditions when controlled for occupational class, gender and age of employees, and a high degree of customer adaptation was associated with increased sickness absence of employees. It is concluded that bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy should not be regarded as dichotomies. Organizational characteristics of workplaces have an impact on the psychosocial working conditions and health of employees beyond occupational class. This has implications for both the theory and the practice of occupational health research.
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| 5. |
- Ekblom, Kim, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Iron stores and HFE genotypes are not related to increased risk of ischemic stroke. : a prospective nested case-referent study
- 2007
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Ingår i: Cerebrovascular Diseases. - : S. Karger AG. - 1015-9770 .- 1421-9786. ; 24:5, s. 405-411
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: High iron levels can increase the formation of noxious oxygen radicals, which are thought to contribute to cerebrovascular disease. The aim of this prospective study was to determine if iron status and HFE genotypes constitute risk factors for stroke. Methods: First-ever stroke cases (231 ischemic and 42 hemorrhagic) and matched double referents from the population-based Northern Sweden cohorts were studied in a nested case-referent setting. Results: For total iron binding capacity, an increased risk of ischemic stroke was seen in the highest quartile (OR 1.80; 95% CI 1.14-2.83; p for trend 0.012). The highest quartile of transferrin iron saturation showed a decreased risk of ischemic stroke in men (OR 0.44; 95% CI 0.22-0.87; p for trend 0.028), but not in women. There was an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke in the second (OR 4.07; 95% CI 1.09-15.20) and third quartile (OR 4.22; 95% CI 1.08-16.42) of ferritin. Neither quartiles of plasma iron concentrations nor the HFE C282Y and H63D genotypes were associated with ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. Conclusions: Iron stores were not positively related to increased risk of ischemic stroke. Furthermore, HFE genotypes did not influence the risk of ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke. Copyright (c) 2007 S. Karger AG, Basel.
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| 6. |
- Floderus, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Disability pension among young women in Sweden, with special emphasis on family structure : a dynamic cohort study
- 2012
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Ingår i: BMJ Open. - : BMJ. - 2044-6055. ; 2:3, s. e000840-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives: The influence of family structure on the risk of going on disability pension (DP) was investigated among young women by analysing a short-term and long-term effect, controlling for potential confounding and the ‘healthy mother effect’.Design and participants: This dynamic cohort study comprised all women born in Sweden between 1960 and 1979 (1.2 million), who were 20–43 years of age during follow-up. Their annual data were retrieved from national registers for the years 1993–2003. For this period, data on family structure and potential confounders were related to the incidence of DP the year after the exposure assessment. Using a modified version of the COX proportional hazard regression, we took into account changes in the study variables of individuals over the years. In addition, a 5-year follow-up was used.Results: Cohabiting working women with children showed a decreased risk of DP in a 1-year perspective compared with cohabiting working women with no children, while the opposite was indicated in the 5-year follow-up. Lone working women with children had an increased risk of DP in both the short-term and long-term perspective. The risk of DP tended to increase with the number of children for both cohabiting and lone working women in the 5-year follow-up.Conclusions: The study suggests that parenthood contributes to increasing the risk of going on DP among young women, which should be valuable knowledge to employers and other policy makers. It remains to be analysed to what extent the high numbers of young women exiting from working life may be counteracted by (1) extended gender equality, (2) fewer work hours among fathers and mothers of young children and (3) by financial support to lone women with children.
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| 7. |
- Floderus, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Medically certified sickness absence with insurance benefits in women with and without children
- 2012
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Ingår i: European Journal of Public Health. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1101-1262 .- 1464-360X. ; 22:1, s. 85-92
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Sickness absence in Sweden is high, particularly in young women and the reasons are unclear. Many Swedish women combine parenthood and work and are facing demands that may contribute to impaired health and well-being. We compared mothers and women without children under different conditions, assuming increased sickness absence in mothers, due to time-based stress and psychological strain. Methods: All women born in 1960-79 (1.2 million) were followed from 1993 to 2003. Information on children in the home for each year was related to medically certified sickness absence with insurance benefits the year after. We used age and time-stratified proportional hazard regression models accounting for the individual's changes on study variables over time. Data were retrieved from national administrative registers. Results: Sickness absence was higher in mothers than in women without children, the relative risks decreased by age, with no effect after the age of 35 years. An effect appeared in lonely women irrespective of age, while in cohabiting women only for the ages 20-25 years. Mothers showed increased sickness absence in all subgroups of country of birth, education, income, sector of employment and place of residence. The relation between number of children and sickness absence was nonlinear, with the highest relative risks for mothers of one child. The upward trend of sickness absence at the end of 1990s was steeper for mothers compared to women without children. Conclusion: Despite the well-developed social security system and child care services in Sweden, parenthood predicts increased sickness absence, particularly in young and in lone women.
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| 8. |
- Floderus, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Self-reported health in mothers : The impact of age, and socioeconomic conditions
- 2008
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Ingår i: Women & health. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0363-0242 .- 1541-0331. ; 47:2, s. 63-86
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of the present analysis was to study health and well-being in mothers compared to women without children, and to analyze potential interactions with age and socioeconomic conditions. The study comprised 5,368 Swedish women born in 1960-1979 who were interviewed in any of the population-based Surveys of Living Conditions during the period 1996-2003. Having children at home was related to self-reported health symptoms and. long-standing illness in multiple logistic regression models. The impact of age, cohabitation status, full-time or part-time work, and income level were analyzed. While mothers were less burdened by long-standing illness, partly due to selection mechanisms (a "healthy mother effect"), they experienced worse self-rated health and more fatigue than women without children, and the odds of poor self-rated. health and fatigue increased by number of children. Conditions that strengthened the association between motherhood and impaired health were young maternal age, full-time employment, high income, and being alone. The study indicates a need for improved negotiations between parents regarding a fair share of work and family duties and extended support for lone mothers to prevent adverse health effects in women combining children and work. ne results may be useful to policy-makers and employers in developing new policies.
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| 9. |
- Floderus, Birgitta, et al.
(författare)
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Work status, work hours and health in women with and without children
- 2009
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Ingår i: Occupational and Environmental Medicine. - : BMJ Publishing Group Ltd. - 1351-0711 .- 1470-7926. ; 66:10, s. 704-710
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives: The authors studied self-reported health in women with and without children in relation to their work status (employed, student, job seeker or homemaker), work hours and having an employed partner.Methods: The study group comprised of 6515 women born in 1960–1979 who were interviewed in one of the Swedish Surveys of Living Conditions in 1994–2003. Self-rated health, fatigue and symptoms of anxiety were analysed.Results: Having children increased the odds of poor self-rated health and fatigue in employed women, female students and job seekers. The presence of a working partner marginally buffered the effects. In dual-earner couples, mothers reported anxiety symptoms less often than women without children. Few women were homemakers (5.8%). The odds of poor self-rated health and fatigue increased with increasing number of children in employed women, and in women working 40 h or more. Poor self-rated health was also associated with the number of children in students. Many mothers wished to reduce their working hours, suggesting time stress was a factor in their impaired health. The associations between having children and health symptoms were not exclusively attributed to having young children.Conclusions: Having children may contribute to fatigue and poor self-rated health particularly in women working 40 h or more per week. Student mothers and job seeking mothers were also at increased risk of poor self-rated health. The results should be noted by Swedish policy-makers. Also countries aiming for economic and gender equality should consider factors that may facilitate successful merging of work and family life.
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| 10. |
- Gustafsson, Klas, et al.
(författare)
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Does Social Isolation and Low Societal Participation Predict Disability Pension? : A Population Based Study
- 2013
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 8:11, s. e80655-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The aim was to examine the potential influence of social isolation and low societal participation on the future risk of receiving disability pension among individuals in Sweden. A specific aim was to describe differences depending on disability pension diagnoses, and how the results were modified by sex and age. Method: The study comprised representative samples of Swedish women and men, who had been interviewed in any of the annual Swedish Surveys of Living Conditions between 1990 and 2007. Information on disability pension and diagnoses was added from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency's database (1991-2011). The mean number of years of follow-up for the 53920 women and men was twelve years (SD 5.5), and the study base was restricted to the ages 20 to 64 years of age. The predictors were related to disability pension by Cox's proportional hazards regression. Results: Social isolation and low societal participation were associated with future disability pension also after control for age, year of interview, socio demographic conditions and self reported longstanding illness. Lone individuals were at increased risk of disability pension, and the effect of living without children was modified by sex and age. An increase in risk was particularly noticeable among younger women who reported that they had sparse contacts with others, and no close friend. Both women and men who reported that they did not participate in political discussions and who could not appeal on a decision by a public authority were also at increased risk. The effects of social isolation were mainly attributed to disability pension with mental diagnoses, and to younger individuals. Conclusions: The study suggests that social isolation and low societal participation are predictors of future disability pension. Social isolation and low societal participation increased particularly the risk of future disability pension in mental diagnoses among younger individuals.
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