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- Erlingsson, Christen
(author)
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Elder abuse through a prism of perceptions : perspectives of potential witnesses
- 2007
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The overall aim of this thesis was to deepen understanding of elder abuse (EA) by exploring and comparing perceptions held by experts, older persons, representatives of potential support organizations, and family members. Experts’ perspectives (I) were examined through risk indicators and screening questions (a) located in EA literature and (b) selected by an international Delphi panel. Risk indicators most commonly found in the literature or selected by the panel were compiled into consensus lists. There were differences between risk indicators and questions in the two lists. In papers II and III participants were interviewed in focus groups about their perceptions of EA. Older persons (II) considered EA to be due to changing society and family systems where children are not brought up to respect older persons. EA was mainly conceptualized as ageism, criminal actions, mistreatment in residential care, and societal abuse. The abuser was perceived as a stranger or a healthcare worker. Fear was discussed as a major consequence of EA; especially fear among women. Abused persons were described as carrying the responsibility to seek help. Witnesses were described as hesitant to get involved. Improvements in society such as educating children and healthcare workers were considered ways to cope with EA. Besides family and friends there were few spontaneous suggestions for where to seek help and support in society. These suggestions included healthcare, police, church, and volunteer organizations. Representatives of these suggested organizations were interviewed in focus groups about their perceptions of EA (III). Perceptions of both causes and conceptions of EA were very similar to perceptions of older persons (II). Four themes emerged in the data; good intentions in abusive situations, older generation’s responsibility for EA, failing to report abuse, and prevention of abuse. Participants (III) also expressed ageist attitudes themselves and findings included victim blaming and tolerance for EA. Participants perceived that anyone could be provoked to abuse, and that abusers can be considered victims in abusive situations. Confidentiality was discussed as a barrier to reporting and the need for educating children to show respect for older persons was identified. Interviews with an adult family member (IV) explored her experiences of witnessing abuse situations between her uncle and his wife. In her desire to protect and remain loyal to her family she felt powerless and tolerated abuse. She longed for support she could trust but was locked into passivity by her feelings of shame. Synthesis of findings (I – IV) revealed issues of isolation, autonomy, vulnerability, victim blaming, perceiving the abuser as a victim of circumstances, ageism, tolerating EA, shame, and power as essential elements in EA. Based on the findings, alternative descriptions of EA are offered as a challenge to existing EA definitions. Findings suggest that a key to unlocking EA is compassion, understood as the ability to see a situation as if we were in it ourselves, experiencing the potential for disrespect, shame and unworthiness inherent in abusive acts.
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| 2. |
- Gustafsson, Christine, 1967-
(author)
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Närhet på distans : Nattsjuksköterskors vårdande i kommunal äldreomsorg
- 2009
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Registered nurses’ [RNs] experiences of caring in nursing, working conditions for caring and reflection in municipal night care was explored to create expanded knowledge and understanding of care for older people. As a consequence of the Ädelreform and development in hospital health care a displacement from clinical health care to municipal care of older people has taken place. Night RNs’ work in the complex municipal care of older people implies single handed work in a consultative function. The RNs are distanced from the care receivers; it is care staff who mainly perform bed side caring. Municipal RNs’ care for older people during nights means trusting their own knowledge and reflective ability, in having nursing responsibility for large groups of old care recipients. This thesis takes point of departure in a qualitative research approach, with four empirical studies. These have been accomplished in a medium sized municipality in the middle parts of Sweden. The aims of the part studies were: to elucidate municipal night nurses’ experiences of the meaning of caring in nursing (I), to explore Swedish municipal night nurses’ experiences of their working conditions for caring in nursing (II), to examine the caring for care staff offered by municipal night nurses, in the setting of old care recipients people enrolled in the municipal social care system (III) and to describe nurses’ conception of reflection in their working situation (IV). Data were collected with interviews (I, II, IV), diary notes (II) and participative observations (III). The data were analyzed with phenomenological hermeneutics (I), thematic content analysis (II, III) and phenomenography (IV). The results reveal that night RNs caring in nursing means the paradoxes: being close at a distance, being responsible without control and being independently dependent. Caring in nursing means a caring stance in prioritizing and taking responsibility for care recipients and care of care staff (I). Night RNs’ caring is dependent on the organization and care staff, and is complex by the fact that the RNs are not care staff leaders. The RNs’ autonomy prerequisite the ability to handle their work, which mainly means mediated caring communicated by telephone (II). The night RNs’ care of care staff means an informal nursing leadership. With their medical competence and authority the RNs occupy a superior caring leader function in nursing (III). Reflection is conceptualized as an instrument to handle the working situation and requires capacity of presence, flexibility and courage. To reflect is experienced to use knowledge, ethics and also personal values, in considering, estimating and assessing caring situations and actions (IV). The conclusion of the studies (I-V) is that the night RNs’ caring is dependent on the prerequisites described in the dimensions of the organization, self-understanding and vocational and professional relations. The RNs must be able to reflect and handle the situation of caring at a distance, without loosing the vocational fundamental condition of caring, though the consultant function implies that they seldom encounter the care recipients. Increased quality, development and creating possibilities for dignity in care for older people means the RNs must participate more in bed side caring. The RNs should also be caring leaders and be given the opportunity for adequate specialist training in gerontology nursing.
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| 3. |
- Sandvide, Åsa
(author)
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Våld i särskilda boenden för äldre : språk och sociala interaktioner
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- The present thesis aims to study the relationship between the violence that occurs in institutional care for older people and the language employed when this violence and the involved parties are talked and narrated. The thesis has been guided by social constructionism, and violence, victims and perpetrators have been considered as social phenomena constructed in discursive processes. Narrative interviews were conducted with 57 care providers who had been involved in social interactions in which violence occurred. The thesis comprises four studies. Study I is a qualitative description of the interactions. In study II, narrative analysis and positioning theory were used to explore the involved parties’ positions. Discourse analysis was employed to investigate discursively created identities (Study III), discursive constructions and how problems related to violence are framed (Study IV). When the care providers described the interactions, they talked about mutual misunderstandings, mutual invasions of personal space and an acceptance of violence in their work. It seemed more reasonable to consider the involved parties as both victims and perpetrators as opposed to one party being exposed and the other perpetrating the violence (I). When the positions of victim and perpetrator were questioned in one care provider’s narrative, they appeared to alter from perpetrator to victim to protector throughout the account by use of available discourses. The way of narrating, taking up or resisting the positions offered by the available discourses made it possible to create a preferred identity (II). These discursively created identities can be viewed as a way of defining an undesirable situation, thereby legitimizing the actions taken. The various identities led to consequences and effects such as loss of autonomy, the use of force, humiliation and exclusion. The construction of identities was connected to various beliefs about older persons (III). Beliefs define what actions are possible and legitimate in a certain context as well as forming the basis for the articulation of problems, thus studying such expressions made it possible to explore beliefs. The articulated problems were viewed as a way to create boundaries, indicating certain possible and relevant solutions. When the care providers talked about the interactions, they presented them as being due to a difficult and unavoidable problem related to the illness, caring for the body, competence and profession as well as social order (IV). The discursive struggle, competence, power, powerlessness, resistance, identity constructions, justification and quality of care are reflected upon and discussed. The analysis of the care providers’ narratives has made it possible to disclose how discourses concur and compete in order to give meaning to concrete social interactions involving violence. It has also been possible to show how to describe, understand and resist as well as to legitimize and justify the actions performed in relation to such interactions. The narratives opened up possibilities to study practices that are talked about as natural. The things that the care providers narrated about have been regarded as manifestations of discourses. Discourses produce certain versions of the interactions, victims and perpetrators, but it must be borne in mind that these are just a few among many possible versions, which are constantly changing.
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| 4. |
- Dalheim-Englund, Ann-Charlotte
(author)
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Skydda och frigöra : en studie av föräldrar till barn med astma och av professionella vårdare
- 2005
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Aim: The overall aim of this thesis is, from the point of view of parents of a child with asthma, to describe meanings of being a parent, parents’ quality of life, and to describe how family relations are influenced by their child’s disease. The aim is also to increase the understanding of what strategies professional caregivers use in their work with teenagers suffering from asthma. Methods: Informants in the three qualitative studies were 29 parents (17 mothers and 12 fathers) of children with asthma and 7 professional caregivers. Informants in a quantitative quality of life study were 371 parents. The data collections were undertaken by means of interviews, observations and a questionnaire. The data was analysed by means of a phenomenological-hermeneutic method, grounded theory and statistics. Results: A meaning of being a parent of a child with asthma is to live a strenuous life and to fear that the child might die during a severe asthma attack. The parents’ actions involve both protecting and liberating and their feelings involve sadness as well as acceptance. Mostly the mothers act in a protecting manner and express feelings of sadness. The fathers mostly act in a liberating manner and express feelings of acceptance. The core concern in families of a child with asthma was found to be disease-engendered uncertainty. The mothers describe that feelings of uncertainty always are present owing to the unpredictability of the disease. These feelings make the mothers more or less available for family members. For the child with asthma the mothers’ experience that they are always available. Thus, control and tight bonds characterize the mother-child relationships. The mothers’ constant availability for the child with asthma is experienced to lead to a decreased availability for other family members and theses relationships are characterised by feelings of forsakenness and lack of understanding. However, when parents of children with asthma estimate their quality of life by a questionnaire, they estimate it as comparatively high. In the same family the parents scoring of separate items was to a large extent similar. The result also shows that professional caregivers’ central concern is to assist teenagers with asthma to conquer life. This gives rise to five strategies: showing respect, being at hand, promoting personal sense of responsibility, promoting exceeding boundaries, and promoting reflections. In professional caregivers’ attempt to assist teenagers to conquer life some differences are seen in the way they support boys and girls. Conclusion: One conclusion drawn from this thesis is that being a parent of a child with asthma involves feelings of uncertainty. In meeting the parents in question, caregivers should reflect upon these feelings and consider how the parents could be assisted. As mothers and fathers describe different attitudes in relation to the care of the child, it is also important to reflect upon how professional caregivers can assist the balance between the mothers’ protecting and the fathers’ liberating attitudes. It is also important for professional caregivers to reflect upon how they meet teenage girls and boys with asthma respectively, and to take their needs and understanding of the situation into consideration.
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