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- Levidioti-Lekkou, Spyridoula, 1945-
(författare)
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Adolescents' voices : mental health, self-esteem, sense of coherence, family functioning and life attitudes in Swedish and Greek adolescents
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background: Several factors have been identified as related to mental health in adolescence, such as competences, behavioural/emotional problems, self-esteem, and sense of coherence. Studies also emphasise the importance of family functioning and cultural factors.Objectives: This study investigates and compares the mental health of adolescents in relation to family functioning and socio-cultural variables in Sweden and Greece. Furthermore, Swedish and Greek adolescents' attitudes about life issues are studied. For Greek youths, mental health and gender variations in attitudes were studied as well.Populations and Methods: The study included 583 Swedish and 238 Greek school-aged adolescents aged 13 through 18 years. The Swedish sample was recruited from students at a Junior High and a High School in the town of Lycksele close to the University town of Umeå and the Greek sample was selected from three High schools and three Lyceums in Patras. The two samples were selected to represent the socio-demographic strata in the study areas.Achenbach's Youth Self Report (YSR), Rosenberg's Self-Esteem, Antonovsky's Sense of Coherence (SOC), and Beavers (SFI) scales were used. Out of the large sample, adolescents who reported either high or low on Achenbach's Youth Self Report–47 Greeks and 47 Swedes–were selected for semi-structured interviews.An interview guide with semi-structured questions was created to gather information about life attitudes. The questions addressed a broad spectrum of everyday life issues to understand how youths orient themselves to life–the central themes of an adolescent life and the basic codes of behaviour related to mental health, family, and culture.Results and discussion: Results revealed significant differences and some simi-larities between Swedish and Greek adolescents. According to YSR, the Swedish adolescents had fewer mental health problems than the Greek adolescents. Although this difference was most evident for internalized problems, it was also evident for externalized problems. These differences were seen for both sexes in most problem areas identified by YSR. In both countries, girls had higher prob-lem scores than boys. Age group comparisons followed the same national differences mostly obvious for the two oldest age groups. As for sense of coherence, all of the Greek groups had higher scores. For self-esteem, no differences were found in the comparison between total group scoring, but Greek girls and Swedish boys had better self-esteem compared to their counterparts. Greek adolescents scored their families higher on family health competence.With respect to attitudes about life issues, Greek youths reported more problems related to self, more fears of social dangers, losses, and illness. In addition, they turned more often to their family for support during difficult times. More Greek youths believed in God than their Swedish counterparts. The two groups identified similar family problems. The Swedes reported more fear about their future and tended to trust public authorities more during times of difficulty. Greek adolescents revealed social concerns, fears about the future and social dangers, and using own coping and family support to face these issues. Mental-health and gender patterns influenced some attitudes. Greek adolescents' attitudes about education, and messages sent to their parents are also presented. Both groups' attitudes about faith and homosexuality are shown.They both emphasised the importance of social and career position. Swedes, however, more often expressed a desire to have a family within five years. We recommend that counselling be offered in schools to provide students with life skills and to improve communication with their parents. This support should help parents and children face relational and behavioural issues of children. In addition, we recommend educational support be provided to Greek youths.
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| 2. |
- Blomberg, Barbro, 1946-
(författare)
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Inklusion en illusion? : Om delaktighet i samhället för vuxna personer med utvecklingsstörning
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The background to this thesis lies in the great changes that have occurred in the disability field during the last threes decades. The purpose of this thesis is to describe, analyze and try to understand how these changes impact on life conditions for adult persons with mild intellectual disabilities. The main focus in this study is to listen to the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities themselves. The questions addressed in the study are; how do people with intellectual disabilities experience participation, citizen-ship, social exclusion and social inclusion in society? Where are their daily arenas and what characterizes those arenas in terms of citizenship, exclusion and inclusion? What type of experiences do they have from encountering people in the community, from encountering the organisations and staff that provide support and service and from the consequences of disability policies in practise? How do staff close to them work to reach the goals of participation? What role can professionals play in supporting participation? Which possibilities and barriers do the staff experience?Empirical data for the study has been gathered by qualitative methods, mainly participant observations and interviews but also from document analysis of local authority documents, official guidelines, laws and national and international disability policy documents.The theoretical framework is based on theories about citizenship and participation. Social exclusion and social inclusion are the sensitizing concepts in this study. For the interpretation and analysis theories about citizenship, participation and categorization were used.In the light of the empirical findings the results of the study show that three main themes were promi-nent. The first theme concerned the daily arenas, were there were both excluded arenas and included are-nas with various forms of interaction with the society. The arenas for support and service in housing and daily activities are described as excluded arenas with mainly internal social interaction. On the other hand the new arenas such as daily activity centres, located in the community, such as cafés, shops run by peo-ple with intellectual disabilities together with staff had frequent interaction with other people in the soci-ety. The second theme concerned the content in the encounters between respondents with intellectual disabilities and different actors in the community. The informants had both positive and negative experi-ences of these encounters. The encounter with the disability policy was, according to this dissertation, that the user informants hade many experiences of lacking social citizenship but also that they experienced structural inclusion when politicians listen to them and answered their questions. The third theme con-cerned how the staff works to reach the goals of participation where both possibilities and barriers exist on structural and individual levels. This study illustrates the user informants’ many experiences of citi-zenship and social exclusion but also examples of social inclusion.In the concluding chapter the results are discussed and analyzed in relation to the theoretical frame-work, where the concept of categorisation was very important. Finally, the description of the process clearly illustrates the difficulties for disability service organisations to develop support and services that are adapted to the actual disability policy. The results shed light on the gap between theory and practise.Some of the most positive changes towards inclusion in society for people with intellectual disabilities come from services run by users and staff close to them. Final conclusions and reflections of the results in the study are that support and service also can be discussed in terms of universalism in order to reduce the process of categorisation.
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| 3. |
- Wiklund, Stefan, 1968-
(författare)
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Den kommunala barnavården - om anmälningar, organisation och utfall
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The thesis presents descriptions and analyses of the municipal-based work that precedes service provision in child welfare, i.e. referrals where concerns regarding children and adolescents are made from professionals and general public and the processing of these referrals within child welfare agencies. The central focus lies to examine the importance of organisational factors – such as formal structures, resources and working methods – in this work. The empirical material in studies 1-3 consists of data collected on location in 100 municipalities during 2001-2002 augmented with official statistics and register data. Data in study 4 consists of telephone interviews in the city of Stockholm’s 18 districts, written material and in-depth interviews in one of the districts.Study 1 describes the extent and nature of referrals to child welfare agencies. The study shows that the extent of Swedish referrals occupies a medium position in an international perspective, that referrals mainly concern adolescents, and that child referrals to a comparatively little extent concern abuse and neglect.Study 2 analyses the association between agency collaborative involvement with mandated reporters and referral rates. The association is overall marginal, indicating that merely the presence of collaboration in child welfare has poor effects on case finding.Study 3 analyses the association between organisational factors and the provision of child welfare services. To some extent, the results suggest that personnel resources are linked to the extent of services provided to younger children. Specialisation in various forms, however, is not associated with variations in service provision.Study 4 describes and analyses the impact of organisational solutions in line with New Public Management. The results indicate that this theoretical/ideological idea has limited practicality in concrete child welfare work.An introductory section presents a comprehensive background to and the theoretical framework of the four studies. The theoretical framework consists principally of concepts and reasoning derived from new institutional theory. This framework is used to discuss results generated from the four studies. Specific attention is given to institutions and ideas in child welfare that have a ‘taken for granted’ status, such as early interventions, collaboration and the presumed appropriateness of a range of organisational settings.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Uttjek, Margaretha, 1955-
(författare)
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Psoriasis care consumption and consequences of having psoriasis in everyday life
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis concerns a research project about psoriasis care and conse¬quences of psoriasis in the county of Västerbotten in Northern Sweden. The overall aim of the thesis is to contribute to improvement of psoriasis care through increased knowledge of the use and accessibility of psoriasis care, and knowledge of impact of psoriasis on patients’ daily lives by describing and interpreting: (i) accessibility and use of psoriasis care, (ii) consequences of having psoriasis in everyday life, and (iii) dilemmas in psoriasis care and visions of future care among professionals, politicians and administrators. The theoretical framework in the psoriasis project was based on previous research, theories and concepts about priority setting, stigma, coping and qual¬ity of life. Parts of the framework were basis of the project plan and other parts were included in order to analyse the findings. Two different methodological approaches were used as complement to each other. The project started with a questionnaire to all known persons with psoriasis in Västerbotten with ques¬tions about socio-economic factors, psoriasis symptoms, psoriasis care, and quality of life. These formed the basis for two studies. The first focused on quality of life, and the other on gender differences in psoriasis care. Qualita¬tive research interviews were made with persons with psoriasis, and with ad¬ministrators, politicians and professionals. The interviews formed the basis for two studies focusing on consequences of psoriasis, and priorities and visions in psoriasis care, respectively. Findings from the studies are reported in four papers. Accessibility of psoriasis care influenced the use among persons with pso¬riasis. Use was also influenced by age, income, joint symptoms and quality of life. Men used psoriasis care more often than women. Both genders expected professional care and amelioration, while more women valued polite treat¬ment. Expectations were fulfilled apart from amelioration. Among decision makers, accessibility and issues on organisation and ethics involved priority dilemmas. The persons with psoriasis stated that visibility of both skin psoria¬sis and joint changes, as well as being stigmatised, was the worst with living with psoriasis. The visibility and stigmatisation were most difficult in younger ages. Some of those with both rashes and joint changes thus felt stigmatised in a twofold way. In order to deal with these difficulties, commonly used coping strategies were routinisation of both treatment and of adjustment to the stigma¬tising process, a strategy which could not be found in literature, and accep¬tance. These strategies developed with age. Those with large disease extent and joint symptoms run the highest risk of impaired health-related quality of life. Most of the interviewed participants, took power over their lives and by using coping strategies created an acceptable personal quality of life for them¬selves. Still they could not find anything positive with having psoriasis. In specialised care as well as local health care, special attention should be paid to gender differences and distance to treatment facilities, and handling of possible stigmatisation in patient care. This thesis suggests that the coping theories should be complemented with routinisation as a coping strategy for psoriasis patients. Also, more research on the usefulness of the letter of referral and its consequence on equality and fairness are suggested.
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| 7. |
- Wikström, Eva, 1966-
(författare)
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"Hela världen på vår tröskel" : lokala reaktioner på en utlokaliserad flyktingförläggning
- 2008
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis describes, conceptualizes and analyzes local reactions to the establishment of a refugee center in a small, remote mining community in Malmliden, rural Sweden, in the early 1990s. The purpose of the study was to explore and describe the local and wider contexts in which the reactions took place and to understand reactions in relation to these contexts. The study combined qualitative interviews, participant observation and the analysis of texts from different sources: daily press, historical and policy documents. Twenty-seven persons were included in the interview study (nineteen respondents and eight key infor-mants). Interviews with the nineteen respondents (nine men and ten women) were based on a semi-structured interview manual and were carried out during the winter of 1993 and the spring of 1994. Theo-retical frames and concepts were chosen in an elaborative way that was suitable for the empirical findings that gradually developed. In short, theoretical considerations that focus on social and political processes of inclusion and exclusion, ethnic relations and categorizations and the interplay between the social and the individual frame the analysis. The analysis is more closely informed by perspectives on how the atti-tudes toward the asylum seeker (as an immigrant but also as a welfare-state client), as a representation of “the other”, are socially produced.This study revealed that the inhabitants had dual reactions to the localized refugee center in Malm-liden. The reactions could neither be characterised as positive nor negative. They were summarized as ambivalent and were expressed spatially and socially. The spatial aspects include a number of inhabitants’ positive experiences of the refugee center as something that brought vitality to the slumbering neighbor-hood, while others thought of the refugee center as something disturbing and displaced. The social aspects involved a number of inhabitant’s embrace of the refugee center and the asylum seekers, whereas others distance themselves from the center and the refugees. While some inhabitants were enriched by the con-tact with asylum seekers, others dissociated themselves from the refugees and other inhabitants who were involved with the refugee centre. Some of the reactions were expressed as resistance. These reactions were mostly expressed latently, toward the authorities or local Policy makers and not directly toward the refugees or the refugee center The inhabitants blamed the establishment of the refugee center and those employed there for the poor state of things because they represented symbols of change and uncertainty. Therefore, initially the resistance could not be understood as rooted in emotional antipathy toward refu-gees as a (ethnic) group or as individuals, but rather as resistance against a perceived intrusion into the neighborhood autonomy. However, the strategies of the inhabitants were avoidance of contact with the refugee center and the stigmatization of the refugees. Therefore, the actions of resistance resulted in a racialization of place and ethnic segregation. The dual reactions of the inhabitants were contextual, and in which local as well as national circumstances played a considerable role in shaping the inhabitants’ experiences. At both national and local levels, the attitudes and practices directed toward asylum seekers and refugees were ambivalent. The reasons for the local acceptance of asylum seekers were ambivalent, and in which both actions of solidarity and economic considerations came into play. An external circum-stance influenced expectations and reactions to the refugee center was an ambivalent refugee policy which aimed to integrate the asylum seeker with a normalized habitat but with an institutional framing, which clearly made the asylum seeker into a client. Another external factor was the welfare state position of the asylum seeker, as he or she was positioned in an ambivalent juridical, social and political position. The overall conclusion is that the positions of the asylum seekers in the neighborhood of Malmliden were further stressed as welfare state clients and not as ordinary neighbors. A concluding image is that the contextual ambivalent positioning of the asylum seekers was reflected in the way the inhabitants regarded the asylum seekers as others in the neighborhood community.
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