This study presents psychometric properties of the Danish version of the Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life Scale (SoMe-Da) and associations to socio-demographic and religious characteristics. Participants were 554 Danes, 66% women ranging in age between 15 and 91 years. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) suggested a five factor structure for the 26 sources if meaning. Construct validity within the SoMe-Da and between mental health variables were established. Generativity associated most strongly with meaningfulness followed by spirituality, attentiveness, and explicit religiosity. We found religious characteristics to be more strongly associated with meaningfulness than socio-demographic variables. Finally, we found distinct patterns of preferred sources of meaning between Christians, agnostics, and atheists. Christians and agnostics seemed to be more motivated by self-transcendance, whereas atheists may be more motivated by self-actualization. Results indicate that the SoMe-Da appears to be a valid instrument for measuring the content and degree of personal meaning in life.

Previous research on children living with parental cancer has mainly focused on the psychosocial challenges, but few studies have explored their health-related quality of life (HRQOL). This is important to promote well-being and discover areas of distress, as well as positive aspects of the children's life. The aim of this study was to study how children's HRQOL is influenced by anxiety and whether age and gender act as moderators for this relationship. This study used a survey with a cross-sectional design, including 35 children between 8 and 18 years old (mean, 13.3 years old) living with parental cancer. Questionnaires of HRQOL (Kinder Lebensqualität) and anxiety (Revised Child Manifest Anxiety Scale) were used. The children reported higher anxiety and lower HRQOL than the controls. The children's physiological (P = .03), emotional (P = .04), and school (P = .00) functions were significantly impaired, whereas they scored in line with the controls on self-esteem, family, friends, and overall HRQOL. A negative correlation (r = -0.707, P < .01) between anxiety and HRQOL was found. Neither age nor gender acted as a moderator between anxiety and HRQOL. A one-dimensional focus on anxiety may not capture these children's multidimensional challenges. In contrast, a focus on HRQOL may give important knowledge of the children's challenges, as well as areas where they function well. Healthcare professionals need to work collaboratively across disciplines and have a multidimensional focus in caring for patients with cancer who have children. They must provide both the parents and children with adequate information and tools to handle their family health situation to promote the children's HRQOL.

Questions of illness experience and identity are discussed, based on the analysis of a story told by the breast-cancer activist Audre Lorde. Displacing Parsons' conceptualization of illness as a sick role, I understand the ill person as a narrative subject, defined by discursive possibilities. Three discourses of illness are proposed: the medical institutional discourse, the discourse of illness experience, and the pink-ribbon discourse. Each has its preferred narratives. These discourses overlap and mutually affect each other. Problems with the Foucauldian conceptualization of the subject are considered, and a dialogical imagination of relations of governmentality is proposed.

International quality concerns regarding long-term residential care, home to many of the most vulnerable among us, prompted our examination of the audit and inspection processes in six different countries. Drawing on Donabedian’s (Evaluation & Health Professions, 6(3), 363–375, 1983) categorization of quality criteria into structural, process and outcome indicators, this paper compares how quality is understood and regulated in six countries occupying different categories according to Esping Andersen’s (1990) typology: Canada, England, and the United States (liberal welfare regimes); Germany (conservative welfare regime); Norway, and Sweden (social democratic welfare regimes). In general, our review finds that countries with higher rates of privatization (mostly the liberal welfare regimes) have more standardized, complex and deterrence-based regulatory approaches. We identify that even countries with the lowest rates of for profit ownership and more compliance-based regulatory approaches (Norway and Sweden) are witnessing an increased involvement of for-profit agencies in managing care in this sector. Our analysis suggests there is widespread concern about the incursion of market forces and logic into this sector, and about the persistent failure to regulate structural quality indicators, which in turn have important implications for process and outcome quality indicators.

The high investment by the Norwegian state and the Norwegian municipalities in terms of material and human resources enhance the opportunities for achieving a homelike and meaningful environment for the residents at the same time as offering high quality professional care. However, obstacles which may be overcome without an increased economic spending, hamper developments. The present work, based on ethnographic fieldwork over a time span of 25 years (1988–2013), supports the view that care for residents in Norwegian NHs is characterized more by historical continuity than by change, for good and for worse.

PurposeThe purpose of this qualitative follow-up study was to describe women's individual coping experiences and reflections following their first year after primary breast cancer surgery. MethodsUsing a qualitative descriptive design, we collected data through individual interviews with ten women at a Norwegian university hospital between August 2007 and April 2008. We employed Kvale's method of qualitative meaning condensation analysis. ResultsThemes identified were: existential concerns and finding meaning, ways of thinking and feeling about the disease, taking action, and returning to normal life. Most women experienced an increased appreciation of life and greater confidence in themselves, were more caring and compassionate towards others, and focused more on their life priorities. Their family and close relationships became more important. They accepted their situation and made the best of it. Positive thinking, physical activity, self-care, nature, hobbies and work helped. Generally, they were optimistic despite a fear of cancer recurrence and uncertainty about their future. The women wanted to return to a “normal” and healthy life by distancing themselves from both the cancer environment and information about cancer. ConclusionUncertainty and anxiety about a potential future cancer relapse was a major undercurrent one year following surgery. Our findings emphasize the richness in these women's coping strategies, their different coping profiles and different needs, as well as some general adaptive strategies, which all fluctuated over time. Not all managed to cope equally well. Through awareness of these women's individual experiences and coping strategies, healthcare professionals can enhance these women's coping endeavours.

In this paper we seek to summarize research literature on hospitalization from nursing homes, to identify shared themes, findings and approaches, and to analyze strengths and weaknesses of the literature. The main aim of the article is to critically review current research on the topic of hospitalization from nursing homes, based on a variety of original research articles and literature overviews. First, we examine why studies of hospitalization from nursing homes are considered to be important in the literature, focusing on what is described as large variation in rates of hospitalization between institutions and geographical areas as well as the occurrence of unwanted and avoidable hospitalizations. Second, we present studies on reasons for rates of hospitalizations of nursing home patients based on patient characteristics. Third, we present studies that have focused on institutional characteristics that may explain rates of hospitalizations. Fourth, we examine factors and conditions highlighted in parts of the literature on hospitalization, more closely than others connected to practice and decision making. Finally, we discuss some of the weaknesses of these hospitalization studies and suggest areas for future research studies.

The task of this interdisciplinary Polish-Norwegian project is development of radar technology for care services. The project has mainly an exploratory design where the capabilities of radar technology are tested out, related to elderly or disabled people living in their own home. A system for preventing and detecting falls, or detecting other potential injurious situations e.g. as nocturnal seizures, is the main goal. Norwegian health care policies suggest strengthening community based services and home based care. Facilitating innovation and appropriation of ambient technology is part of this strategy. The present project relates to telecare as part of ambient assisted living.

Individuals from intact and nonintact families were compared regarding their health-related behavior and physical health problems in a prospective study during a 17-year period throughout adolescence and into young adulthood. A total of 983 respondents were included in the study gathering data at 9 different times from the age of 13 until 30 years of age. Significant differences were observed for a number of health-related behaviors, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, nutrition habits, and physical activity, as well as for self-reported health and subjective health complaints, all being less favorable among those who had grown up in nonintact families. The differences were similar across all data collection times for all but 1 outcome, indicating that the effect ts of family structure were stable throughout adolescence and early adulthood. This could have valuable implications for timing or duration of health promotion efforts.

This study examined the development of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and health from adolescence to adulthood after extremely preterm birth. We assessed a population-based cohort of extremely preterm-born (EPB) infants (gestational age of ≤28weeks or birthweight of ≤1000grams) and term-born (TB) controls at 17 and 24years of age. They completed the Child Health Questionnaire-Child Form 87 at 17years of age, the Short Form Health Survey-36 (SF-36) at 24years of age and the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children-Symptom Checklist at both ages. Of the 51 eligible EPB subjects, 46 (90%) were included and nine had severe neurosensory disabilities. On the whole, EPB and TB subjects gave their HRQoL and health similar ratings, but EPB subjects with disabilities reported poorer physical functioning at 17 and EPB subjects without disabilities reported lower scores on three of the eight SF-36 scales for social functioning and mental health and reported more psychological health complaints at 24. Differences remained in adjusted analyses. Changes from 17 to 24years of age were minor in EPB subjects with disabilities. Our comparison of EPB and TB subjects at the ages of 17 and 24 indicated that psychosocial HRQoL may deteriorate for EPB subjects when they enter adulthood.