Editorial, SJCS June 2017 issue: Changing times

Abstract

We as editors of Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences had a great opportunity to attend the Nordic Conference organised by European Academy of Caring Sciences in collaboration with Nordic College of Caring Science (NCCS) in April 2017, Bodo, Norway. The theme of the conference was “Well-being and caring in changing times.” The high-level conference programme included different themes starting from understanding of well-being and caring, development of caring in different contexts and development of practice, education and management. The conference programme and presentations gave the audience a lot of new knowledge and raised several new questions for further discussion. Discussion on the theme could be continued in the forthcoming conference 2018 in Tampere, Finland. We will organise the 5th Nordic Conference in Family Focused Nursing: “Families throughout the life span.” It will take place 3 to 5 June 2018 in Tampere Hall. (please see www.nordicfamily 2018.fi) Each of us could spend a while considering the meaning of changing times. What is changing from perspectives of patients and their families when they have to manage at home and take care of themselves after a short visit to health care? What is the role of caring for each other? What do changing times mean in the development of health care, education and management? Changing times belong also to the positive development of the Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences. This 2017 is the second year when we have produced our Journal only electronically without the printed journal. It has been our pleasure to notice that plenty of manuscripts are submitted for review to be published in the Journal. Only about 30% could have been accepted for publication. Also the articles in the journal have been read and referred, which has led the impact factor to increase to 1.215. It means that the journal has a large amount of readers who are researchers, practitioners, educators and managers. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences is the forum which will disseminate new knowledge to develop health and well-being of patients and their families. We also hope that discussion of concepts important to nursing and caring as well as research methods will help scholars to enhance their understanding. We can proudly present exiting news from the Journal, when Wiley has developed an SJCS Journal App. Now the journal is available for your iPhone or iPad. Everybody can browse free content, and the subscribers can access to all Journal content by logging to the app. As a subscriber, you can download and read the new issue of the Journal, get access to new content and select keywords and get alerts from topics you wish. In addition, the subscribers can save their favourite articles and access them also offline or share links to their favourite articles with colleagues and friends. To get the app, you only need to search SJCS or Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences in the app store and download it. When writing this Editorial, we in Finland, but also in other Nordic countries, have practically lived a changing time, or more concretely the changing season, when we have left the dark winter and moving towards light of the summer season. Hopefully, this will give a possibility for each of us to enjoy the long and warm days of the summer. And also to have some relaxation and rest, time to read and think and to find new ideas for research. We wish you all an enjoyable and relaxing summer 2017!