| 1. |
- Nygren, Karina, et al.
(author)
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Adolescent self-reported health in relation to school factors : a multilevel analysis
- 2014
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In: Journal of School Nursing. - : Sage Publications. - 1059-8405 .- 1546-8364. ; 30:2, s. 114-122
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The aim of the study was to examine school-related determinants of self-reported health among adolescents. Questionnaire survey data comprising 4,972 students, Grades 7 through 9, from 20 schools in northern Sweden were used. Also, complimentary data about each school were collected from the Swedish National Agency for Education. Using multilevel logistic regression analyses, results showed that most variation in self-reported health was explained by individual-level differences. Truancy, bullying, and poor relations with teachers significantly increased the odds ratio of reporting poor general health, for boys and for girls. Most variables at the school level, for example, school size and student-teacher ratio, did not render significant associations with students' self-reported health. In conclusion, this study indicates that health promotion at school, including school health services, may benefit from focusing primarily on individual-level determinants of health, that is, students' relations to peers and teachers, without ignoring that bullying and weak student-teacher relationships also may induce school-level interventions.
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| 2. |
- Nygren, Karina, 1974-
(author)
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Adolescent self-reported health in the Umeå region : Associations with behavioral, parental and school factors
- 2012
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This thesis consists of a quantitative and a qualitative study. The quantitative study (articles I-III) aimed to examine how self-reported health in adolescence is associated with behavioral, parental, and school factors. Through a survey directed at all adolescents in grades 7-9, data were collected in 2005 in a region in northern Sweden (n=5060). Statistical methods were used to analyze the survey data: chi2tests, multivariate logistic regressions and multilevel logistic regressions. Results showed that even though most adolescents reported good health, there were also rather large proportions of adolescents who reported headaches, stomach aches and feelings of stress. Girls reported poor health to a higher extent than boys, a difference that was larger in grade 9 than in grade 7. The results also showed that being norm compliant was associated with good self-reported health. Furthermore, perceiving relations and communication with parents as poor was associated with poor self-reported health; however, this relationship could not explain gender differences in self-reported health. Continuing on, analyses showed that there exist greater variations in self-reported health between students (within a school) than between different schools. On an individual level, poor relations to teachers, bullying and truancy were associated with poor general health. The qualitative study (article IV) sought to examine barriers to and facilitators of utilization of local school survey results within a school setting. In 2011, 21 school district managers and principals within a Swedish municipality were interviewed. Analyses were performed using a qualitative content analysis. The results from the qualitative study showed that the dissemination and utilization of school survey results appeared as two interrelated phases in one process. Barriers and facilitators differed qualitatively depending on the phase, dissemination or utilization.In conclusion, professionals as well as researchers need to consider the complexity of adolescent health and its social determinants. Adolescent health is a concern for multiple sectors in society, which highlights the need for further development of collaborations between professionals in relevant fields, such as health care, school and social services.
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| 3. |
- Nygren, Karina, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Norm compliance and self-reported health among Swedish adolescents
- 2011
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In: Scandinavian Journal of Public Health. - : SAGE Publications. - 1403-4948 .- 1651-1905. ; 39:1, s. 44-50
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Aims: This study examines the relationship between norm compliance and self-reported health in adolescents, and how this differs between genders. Our specific aim was to investigate if extremely high norm compliance revealed any particular health patterns. Methods: This empirical study used a web-based survey from 2005, which was distributed to all students (n = 5,066) in years 7—9 of compulsory school within six municipalities in northern Sweden. The respondents answered questions about their general health as well as specific health problems such as headaches, stomach ache, sleeping difficulties and stress. Compliance was measured according to different norm-related behaviour, such as truancy, crime and use of tobacco, alcohol and narcotics. Results: The majority of respondents reported good health and norm-compliant behaviour. Girls reported more health problems than boys, a difference that increased with age. Those who were more norm compliant reported better health, fewer somatic complaints and less stress, which goes against our initial hypothesis that extremely high norm compliance and self-reported ill-health are related. There seemed to be a stronger relationship between self-reported health and norm compliance for girls than boys, in absolute terms. Conclusions: The results clearly show a relationship between norm compliance and health, and suggest inequalities between genders.
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| 4. |
- Nygren, Karina, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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Parents matter : but relations to parents do not explain gender differences in self-reported health in adolescents
- 2012
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In: Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences. - : Wiley. - 0283-9318 .- 1471-6712. ; 26:4, s. 643-653
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The aim of the study was to explore whether parent-adolescent relations are associated to self-reported health of adolescents. Logistic regression analyses were performed on a cross-sectional data set consisting of 5060 adolescents, grades 7-9, from six municipalities in the northern part of Sweden. The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Umeå, Sweden. Results showed that, in both boys and girls, experiencing low parental demands as well as perceiving the relationship quality and the communication with parents as poor were significantly associated with having poor general health, somatic complaints and feelings of stress. In general, girls scored lower on self-reported health than boys, but our findings indicate that these gender differences could not be explained by relations to parents. In conclusion, relations to parents play an important role for self-reported health of adolescents. Although no causal-effect statements can be determined in this study, it is implied that there is a need for health professionals, such as school nurses, school welfare officers, etc., to pay special attention to parent-adolescent relations in their work with adolescents.
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| 5. |
- Nygren, Karina, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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The Notion of Family in Lithuanian and Swedish Social Legislation
- 2018
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In: Social Policy and Society. - : Cambridge University Press. - 1474-7464 .- 1475-3073. ; 17:4, s. 651-663
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This study examines the conceptualisation of family in key social legislative documents guiding social workers in two European countries, whose welfare systems have previously been labelled as re-familialised (Lithuania) or de-familialised (Sweden). The focus is on the concept of family as delineated on three legislative levels: the constitutional level, the general family policy level, and the child welfare policy level. ‘Family’ is explicit in Lithuanian law, and the regulation of family formation and responsibility is imperative, while this is much less so in Swedish law. The analysis reveals how general welfare systems (regime-types) are linked to legislative frameworks, which, in turn, provide fundamentally different conditions for social work in different contexts.
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| 6. |
- Nygren, Karina, 1974-, et al.
(author)
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What happens with local survey findings? : a study of how adolescent school surveys are disseminated and utilized in Swedish schools
- 2013
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In: Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research. - : Taylor & Francis Group. - 0031-3831 .- 1470-1170. ; 57:5, s. 526-543
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper aimed at examining the barriers to and facilitators of disseminating and utilizing the results of a local Swedish school survey. Interviews with 21 school district managers/principals were performed. Results showed that dissemination and utilization of local survey data appeared as two interrelated processes. With those processes, various barriers and facilitators were mentioned. The barriers and facilitators were not merely the opposites of each other; instead they qualitatively differed from each other depending on what phase in the process the manager/principal referred to. The results also showed that the dissemination phase was both a prerequisite for and interwoven with the utilization phase, e.g. dissemination efforts were important for how the survey results were utilized.
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| 7. |
- Nygren, Martin, et al.
(author)
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Identification of 2,3,7,8-substituted polychlorinated dioxins and dibenzofurans in environmental and human samples
- 1986. - 1
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In: Chlorinated dioxins and dibenzofurans in perspective. - Boca Raton : CRC Press. - 9781315891545 - 9781351070645 ; , s. 17-34
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Book chapter (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs) are two series of tricyclic, almost planar aromatic compounds that exhibit very similar physical, chemical, and biological properties. The human exposure to PCDDs and PCDFs by milk consumption is not negligible. Detection levels in ecological and human samples should be orders of magnitude below the usual detection levels obtained in pesticide analyses. One objective of the study is to identify background levels of PCDDs and PCDFs in these samples, especially those of human origin. The spectrum of toxic effects is species dependent but for humans they include chloracne and porphyria cutane tarda and for other animals edema, thymic atrophy, teratogenicity, liver lesions and a slow wasting syndrome followed by death. It is evident that it is of particular importance to identify the ultimate source or sources of the toxic 2,3,7,8-substituted PCDDs and PCDFs found as background constituents in the environmental and human samples, especially the samples of mother's milk, which are of toxicological interest.
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| 8. |
- Addelyan Rasi, Hamideh, 1975-
(author)
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Empowering Women in the Middle East by Psychosocial Interventions : Can provision of learning spaces in individual and group sessions and teaching of coping strategies improve women’s quality of life?
- 2013
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Background: This study set out to construct a conceptual framework that can be used in social work with women in the Middle East and other settings where women have limited access to resources, which, as a result, limits their decision-making capacity. The framework has both an empirical and a theoretical base. The empirical base comprises data from two intervention projects among Iranian women: single mothers and newly married women. The theoretical base is drawn from relevant psychological and social work theories and is harmonized with the empirical data. Psychosocial intervention projects, based on learning spaces for coping strategies, were organized to assess if Iranian women could use a problemsolving model (i.e. focused on cognition and emotion simultaneously) to effectively and independently meet challenges in their own lives and improve their quality of life.Methods: Descriptive qualitative and quasi-experimental quantitative methods were used for data collection and analysis. Forty-four single mothers and newly married women from social welfare services were allocated to nonrandomized intervention and comparison groups. The intervention groups were invited to participate in a 7-month psychosocial intervention; the comparison groups were provided with treatment as usual by the social welfare services. The WHOQOL-BREF instrument was used to measure quality of life, comparing each intervention groups’ scores before and after the intervention and with respective comparison groups. In addition, content analysis and constant comparative analysis were performed on the qualitative data collected from the participants before, during and after the intervention.Results: The results of the quasi-experimental study show significant and large effect sizes among the women exposed to the intervention. Small and not statistically significant effect sizes were observed in the women provided with traditional social welfare services. Accordingly, teaching coping strategies can be a means to improve the quality of life of women in societies where gender discrimination is prevalent. The qualitative findings from the Iranian projects illustrate a process of change —socio-cognitive empowerment— with regard to thinking, feeling and acting among women during and after the intervention. The women developed a number of mental capacities essential to coping and life management. All women used the model effectively, and consequently, made more deliberate decisions to improve their life situations.Conclusion: The practical lessons from the Iranian projects highlight the possibilities of empowering women through fostering mindfulness and deliberate decision making as well as achieving consciousness. This study provides provisional evidence that psychosocial intervention projects, based on learning spaces for coping strategies, can help many clients to achieve their goals and improve their quality of life, and that this psychosocial intervention project can be a useful model for social work practice with women in the Middle East. The conceptual framework can help social workers to bridge the gap between theory and practice: that is, to draw from existing social work theories and, through the psychosocial intervention model, better apply this knowledge in their practical work with women in challenging social environments.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Andersson, Katarina, et al.
(author)
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Governance, Accountability, and Organizational Development : Eldercare Unit Managers' and Local Politicians' Experiences of and Responses to State Supervision of Swedish Eldercare
- 2018
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In: Journal of Aging & Social Policy. - : Routledge. - 0895-9420 .- 1545-0821. ; 30:5, s. 419-439
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article explores how local politicians and care unit managers in Swedish eldercare experience and respond to state supervision. Twelve politicians and 12 managers in 15 previously inspected municipalities were interviewed about their experiences of and reactions to state supervision (SSV) in relation to their views of care quality and routines in eldercare practice. The findings indicate that local managers and political chairs perceived SSV in eldercare positively at a superficial level, but were critical of and disappointed with specific aspects of it: in terms of a) governance—chairs and managers said SSV strengthened implementation of national policies via local actors, but were critical of SSV’s narrow focus on control and flaws in eldercare practice; b) accountability—SSV was seen as limited to accountability for finances and systemic performance; and c) organizational development—SSV was seen as limited to improving routines and compliance with legislation, while local definitions of quality are broader than that. In general, local actors regarded SSV as improving administrative aspects and routines in practice but ignoring the relational content of eldercare quality.
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