Sweden Today Research Articles

Oral health experience of individuals with eating disorders

BackgroundEvidence on how persons with and in remission from an eating disorder experience their oral health is limited. Dental treatment in Sweden today is often postponed until medical rehabilitation has been completed, but this carries risks. For the patient, the risk is severely impaired oral health and additional suffering, and for both society and the patient, higher costs than might have been necessary.MethodsTen female informants aged 21–51 years (mean age = 36.7, standard deviation 12.7) in remission from an eating disorder with a median duration of 12.5 (range 4–25) years of illness, were questioned in semi-structured interviews about their perceptions of oral health. All participants had been referred to a specialist dental clinic and needed oral rehabilitation. 10% of the patients had been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and 90% with bulimia nervosa. All had been in remission from the eating disorder for at least one year. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed with thematic analysis using an inductive approach.ResultsOne overarching theme emerged from the analysis: dental damage persisted as a visible, lingering scar during remission of the eating disorder, reminiscent of the disease and its consequences. The three major themes identified were (1) Physical impact, (2) Psychological impact, and (3) Impact on daily living. The first major theme included erosive tooth wear and impaired oral function and aesthetics. Interviewees described the second as feelings of stigma, guilt, shame, anxiety, and worry, in particular concerning self-inflicted dental damage through self-induced vomiting. The last major theme covered avoidance strategies such as limiting smiling and laughing and minimizing social situations such as eating with others, pursuing a wanted career, and meeting a partner.ConclusionsThe participants in this study expressed a profound negative impact on daily life and a two-fold burden of stigma of having suffered from both an eating disorder and poor oral health.

Sources for railway community noise modeling

For rail traffic, the wheel-rail interaction is one of the most important sources of noise, and is included in different ways in the noise calculation methods being used in Sweden today. However, if the rolling stock exhibit other noise sources it is not clear how they are handled by the different calculation methods. Recent measurements in Sweden of the newly refurbished 'X2' passenger trains indicate that cooling fan exhausts mounted high up on the driving unit radiate noise at levels corresponding to the wheel-rail noise at speeds of 200 km/h. The NMT96 calculation method currently used in Sweden represents the whole train as one line source per octave band, each placed at different heights. The newer Nord 2000 method, applies three sources at low heights for rolling noise and allows additional sources but without defining how to accommodate them. The Cnossos-EU method puts all potential exhaust and fan noise at the higher of two sources, at 4 m above the rail. None of the models define how to apply a source to just the locomotive as sound power is given per meter train or per rolling axis. The impact on noise exposure and mitigation is discussed in this paper.

Fire Safety Disparities in Sweden: Sociodemographic Influences and the Impact of Societal Protection on Personal Fire Prevention Measures

AbstractPrevious research has identified sociodemographic inequalities in fire prevention measures. This study examined whether sociodemographic differences persist in the Swedish population concerning fire prevention measures and particularly whether there remains an inverted u-curve related to age in protection habits. Additionally, it investigated whether fire protection practices are influenced by the level of societal protection. The research utilised survey data and register data from The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency and Statistics Sweden. A latent class analysis was conducted, dividing respondents into four latent classes, followed by two binomial regression analyses. The study revealed three key findings regarding fire protection measures. First, certain demographic groups, namely the young, women, single and childfree households, low-income and low-education individuals, immigrants, and urban residents, are disproportionately lacking optimal fire safety measures. Second, although a safety maturity curve is still observed, older adults in Sweden today are considerably more protected compared to 15–20 years ago, indicating that safety practices employed during middle age continue into old age. Third, a trend is observed where individuals living in areas with more efficient professional rescue services tend to have lower levels of personal fire protection, suggesting a rational choice based on the perceived level of societal protection.

502. COMPARING NEOADJUVANT TREATMENTS REGARDING DYSPHAGIA AND WEIGHT CHANGES FOR PATIENTS WITH OESOPHAGEAL OR GASTRO OESOPHAGEAL CANCER

Abstract Background Dysphagia is the main symptom for patients diagnosed with cancer in the oesophagus or gastro oesophageal junction (GOJ), but there are lack of recent studies confirming this. Several studies have reported relief of dysphagia during neoadjuvant treatment but there might also be side effects affecting nutritional status resulting in weight loss. We wanted to investigate if there are differences between the mainly used neoadjuvant treatments in Sweden today, namely CROSS, FLOT, and other treatments (OT), for example prolonged neoadjuvant treatment due to oligometastatic cancer. Aims of this study was to investigate dysphagia, weight changes, and main causes of healthcare referral. Methods All patients with cancer in the oesophagus or GEJ receiving neoadjuvant treatment followed by subsequent oesophagectomy at Karolinska University hospital in Stockholm, Sweden January 2017 to June 2022 were included in the study. Data were extracted from the local prospective database and the electronic medical records. To grade the severity of dysphagia we used the five graded Ogilvie score. The weight as well as the dysphagia score was evaluated before oncological treatment and before surgery. The patients were divided into three groups, them receiving CROSS, FLOT and OT, respectively. Results There were 69 patients receiving CROSS, 68 receiving FLOT and 28 receiving OT. The patients experienced relief of dysphagia in all groups, CROSS p<0.001, FLOT p<0.001 and OT p<0.001. Patients receiving CROSS lost 1.32 kg weight (-8.5 kg to 6.4 kg), while those receiving FLOT gained 0.08 kg (-5.5 kg to 11.1 kg) and OT lost 0.49 kg (-20 kg to 8 kg). Dysphagia was the main symptom for patients diagnosed with oesophageal cancer or GEJ (65%), other causes (9%), followed by anaemia (8 %), reflux (6%), pain (6%) and au passant (5%). Conclusion All groups experienced statistically significant relief of dysphagia during the neoadjuvant treatments. There were small differences in weight changes between the treatment groups, although patients undergoing chemoradiotherapy treatment lost more weight compared to those only receiving chemotherapy. Main cause of referral is dysphagia. Key words Oesophageal cancer, neoadjuvant therapy, dysphagia, weight

Symposium 1: Interactive and action-oriented instruction for a digital era

This paper explores and reflects what the methodological considerations are for a study of classroom practice as networked learning. The area of interest is instruction in reading children´s literature in the primary school classroom, i.e., emergent literature didactics. Digitalization processes in society and school involve new conditions for literature didactics and challenges in the classroom. In today`s society we not only communicate in the form of speech and writing, but the digitalization has resulted in that communication takes place through both texts, images, and sound, i. e. multimodal communication (Jewitt, 2008; Godhe et al., 2020). Except for these changed conditions, it is possible to observe decreasing reading frequency, changing attitudes towards reading, and declining reading comprehension among children and youth in Sweden today (Statens Medieråd, 2017; Skolverket, 2017). The overall aim of the PhD thesis is to contribute knowledge about how literature didactics is designed in primary school classrooms, with regards to how this instruction enables encounters with and comprehension of children’s literature, through the support of digital technology. The project consists of three empirical sub-studies with a mixed method approach. In combination with quantitative surveys, qualitative focused observations and interviews with teachers will target instruction in literature didactic, and the role and function of digital technology. Participants are pre- and in-service teachers. The presentation of sub-study I describes how thirty-seven preservice teachers observed classroom teaching during one school day in different primary schools, with the aim to investigate activities related to fiction reading and the role of digital technology in these settings. The study was analyzed by using a thematic content analysis. The preliminary results show that dialogic reading, where the teacher reads fictions texts aloud and orchestrate a dialogue about it with the pupils, is dominating. The activity is supported by document cameras. In the context of this paper, the dialogic reading is understood as part of many pedagogical practices within networked learning, which includes interplays between teacher and pupils or between pupils. The results raise questions about teachers’ motives for literature choices, design, activities, and uses of technology. The analytical tools used in the first study need to be improved, in order to gain a better understanding of the role and function of technology in reading instruction in primary school settings. In addition, complementary empirical data with different foci need to be collected and contrasted with the empirical results from sub-study I.

Sámi traditional medicine and complementary and alternative medicine – a descriptive study of use within the Sámi population of Sweden

ABSTRACT Traditional medicine has been practised for millennia in the Sámi population, based on a Sámi worldview and cosmology, which includes natural remedies, prayers, drums and yoik singing. During the Christianisation of the Sámi during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these practices were condemned. In recent years, however, a revival of Sámi culture has occurred and so has the practice of Sámi traditional medicine (STM) and the use of complementary alternative medicine (CAM). The aim of this study is to map the prevalence and use of STM and CAM among Sámi in Sweden today. The study population consisted of 3641 Sámi from the whole of Sweden, who had participated in the population-based cross-sectional survey Sámi Health on Equal Terms (SámiHET) in 2021. Our results show that women are more prone to use both STM and CAM than men and that younger persons are more likely to use STM and CAM than elderly persons. STM is more often used in the northern parts of Sápmi compared to the southern parts as well as a lower use of CAM in the north. This might be due to the stronger Sámi identity and easier access to traditional Sámi healers/helpers in the north as well as limited access to CAM services

The impact of inflation on macroeconomic instability in different countries

Within the framework of this article, the author sets himself the goal of analyzing the characteristics of inflation processes in different countries, as well as the impact of inflation on macroeconomic instability in Poland, Sweden and Russia. The author argues that minimizing the risk of inflation will help the country reach a new level of development and stabilize constant economic growth. In 1980–1990 Many countries began to move from a command economy to a market economy, and the listed countries were no exception. It is emphasized that the Polish economy in the 1990s was one of the weakest in the European zone, and there was macroeconomic instability in all its forms: shortages of goods, high inflation, unemployment, and government budget deficits. However, today Poland is a successful country, its GDP is growing every year, while inflation processes can be maintained at the proper level. The article analyzes the inflation rate in Poland at the end of the twentieth century, during the crisis period in 2008, and also highlights the main measures taken by the Polish government to reduce inflation rates and minimize possible risks. In addition, the author believes that today Sweden is a country with a developed economy and the most favorable living conditions for its population. Despite favorable living conditions for the population, Sweden faces both a risk of inflation and a risk of deflation, both of which contribute to macroeconomic instability in the country. With the collapse of the USSR, macroeconomic instability, according to the author, is constantly observed in the country. High levels of inflation, state budget deficits, and periodic declines in production have been observed in the country for 20 years. In the final part of the article, the author compares the inflation rates of the countries considered, and also formulates a conclusion regarding the experience of other countries in the fight against inflation.

Constructing loneliness: Home care providers' notions of older adults' social needs and the possibilities of the home care profession to support social participation

Quality of care is determined not only by political decisions but also by how those policies are understood and managed by professionals when put into action. Home care services, the most common form of elder care in Sweden today, should include social support, which is very important for health and wellbeing. And yet, support for social participation seems to be lacking. Understanding prevalent social constructs and their possible impacts on focus and content of social practice in home care could reveal ways to address social support in home care. Therefore, this article highlights how professionals in home care provision talk about older home care recipients' loneliness and social needs, and how these repertoires are related to professionals' opportunities and obligations to support those social needs. The study included 22 persons from different professions in home care provision, from two municipalities in northern Sweden. Nine individual interviews and four group interviews were conducted, recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using a discourse psychology approach. The results show two interpretative repertoires in which notions of otherness and likeness guided definitions and support regarding loneliness, social needs, and social support. This study reveals assumptions that underpin and structure the practices of home care. As the interpretative repertoires provided differing and partly opposing views on how to provide social support and combat loneliness, it seems important to also address the broader issues of professional identities and how loneliness is defined and approached.

Factors Influencing Choice of Wooden Frames for Construction of Multi-Story Buildings in Sweden

Construction of buildings with wooden frames higher than two stories has been permitted in Sweden since 1994. As construction of multi-story buildings with wooden frames is relatively new, people in the construction industry are more likely to construct these buildings with concrete frames. The current research evaluates the factors influencing the choice of wooden frames for construction of multi-story buildings in Sweden. The purpose of this study is to explain which advantages and disadvantages construction companies in Sweden consider with wooden construction and to highlight the factors for why multi-story buildings are built with wood to a lesser extent than with other materials. The main goal is to investigate what factors or assumptions construction companies base their decisions on, and whether experience and competence in wooden frames for construction of multi-story buildings are considered in short supply in Sweden today. The chosen method for this research is a descriptive survey study with a qualitative and quantitative approach. The survey is based on respondents from five leading building companies in Sweden with regard to the companies’ revenue. The respondents had either previous experience in constructing multi-story buildings with wooden frames, experienced respondents (ERs), or no experience, unexperienced respondents (UERs). 63% of the respondents were ERs, while 37% of them were UERs. It is resulted that the respondents think there is a lack of competence and experience in wooden frames for construction of multi-story buildings in Sweden. Factors that have the greatest impact on decisions to construct with wooden frames are positive environmental and climatic aspects as well as production advantages. Factors that are considered as major obstacles to construct with wooden frames are cost, acoustics, and moisture problems.

Opportunities for planned retreat and flexible land use in Sweden: Local, regional and national governance perspectives

As the sea level rises and the frequency of intense rains increase, so does the need for climate adaptation. Planning for a successive development of society away from current and future flood prone areas to give room for water is not seen as an alternative in Sweden today, although it could be a strategy that creates long-term security.In this study, we investigated Swedish public authorities' perceptions of planned retreat and flexible land use. This was done through an online survey and interviews directed to officials directly involved in climate adaptation work, at municipalities, County Administration Boards (CABs), Regions, national authorities (NAs), and industry organizations (IOs). The responses were analyzed through the lens of a windows of opportunity approach. The study indicates that the extent to which climate scenarios are used and how far into the future the planning horizon extends in the practical work, varies between governance level which also have impact on the perspectives on planned retreat. The openness for planned retreat and flexible strategies seemed to differ slightly between governance levels in an ascending scale from regions, IOs / NAs, municipalities, to CABs. The survey has generated insights from a large number of respondents at different governance levels sharing their perceptions of retreat and adaptation in Sweden as a main contribution of this work.Difficulties to deal with uncertainties in climate scenarios and considering long-term perspectives were identified as some reasons that close the window for planned retreat. Enabling a flexible use of the land that will gradually become more exposed to flooding and sea level rise could be an intermediate step towards retreat. This would be a way to reframe a closed window of opportunity and begin the process of turning it into something transformative. It could be where the short- and long-term planning meet and a way to reframe our way of thinking about how we live and reside in dynamic waterfront areas, and perhaps lead to a more transformative, safe, and sustainable society for future generations.

Walk Me to the Corner by Anneli Furmark

Reviewed by: Walk Me to the Corner by Anneli Furmark Graziano Krätli Anneli Furmark Walk Me to the Corner Trans. Hanna Strömberg. Montreal. Drawn & Quarterly. 2022. 226 pages. WALK ME TO THE CORNER is the tenth comic book by the award-winning Swedish painter, illustrator, and graphic artist Anneli Furmark and her second to be translated in English. (Set in a different time and social environment, Red Winter is both a forerunner to and an antithesis of Walk Me to the Corner.) The title is from a song by Leonard Cohen whose theme and lyrics provide other, subtle references throughout the book. Simply said, it is the story—sensitively told, beautifully drawn, and intelligently translated—of the intense, disruptive, and ultimately open-ended love affair between two middle-aged women in today's Sweden. Elise is a magazine writer; Dagmar, an otolaryngologist. The two meet at an event where they keep "crossing paths all night," talk briefly, and eventually say goodbye, holding "each other for maybe three seconds." Later on, lying in bed next to her husband, Elise wonders: "Were those three seconds the start of everything?" The answer is in the bathroom mirror where, soon after getting home, she scrutinized herself, seeing "everything that was lopsided. Everything that was fluffy and pasty," and, "like an insecure teenager," questioning it all. Soon, it is also in the timid, explorative texts the two women start exchanging, until they decide to meet and "The Inevitable" happens. For Elise, it is the beginning of an alluring journey into uncharted territory, something completely new and very different from her love for Henrik, her husband of twenty years, but also more introspective and unsettling than Dagmar's feelings for her, which are straightforward and genuine but apparently not strong enough to result in a separation from her wife, Jenny, and "the girls." On the contrary, Elise's uncompromising passion will lead her to a broken marriage and a new life but also a new sense of clarity and determination. "I want to be with her," Elise tells her therapist; and when he insists, "And if that's not possible?" she hesitates, but only for a second. "If that's not possible … I still want it." As it turns out, Dagmar wants it, too, in her own enticing yet elusive way; and we feel that, if their "steps will not always rhyme," they will take them to the corner and eventually help them turn it. Over the years, Furmark's style has developed an affective consonance between graphic line and coloring, or between the narrative element and the expressive atmosphere—the mood—of her stories, and in this respect Walk Me to the Corner represents her most accomplished result to date. Frame after frame, a gorgeous spectrum of pastel washes, often highlighted by delicate penciling, provide the emotional background against which the characters are rendered in scrutinizing pen strokes. And never is such a dialogue more effective and moving than in the more intimate scenes, when color absorbs the characters and they acquire the transparency of a Chinese painting. Graziano Krätli New Haven, Connecticut Copyright © 2022 World Literature Today and the Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

Socio-spatial stratification of housing tenure trajectories in Sweden - A longitudinal cohort study.

Individuals tend to be most mobile when they are between 20 and 40 years of age. This pattern is relatively stable across regions and over time. For geographical mobility, less is known about their transitions between different types of housing and tenure forms. In Sweden, households may select between, principally, three different types of tenure forms, each often coupled with a specific housing type. Households may rent from either public companies (municipality owned) or private landlords in multifamily dwellings, households may own their single-family house privately, or they can cooperatively own a multifamily house as a tenant-owner in an apartment. Yet we lack knowledge of which tenure trajectories individuals tend to follow during their most mobile years, and we also lack knowledge about which factors determine tenure trajectories. Our sample consist of individuals who in 1995 were aged 18-25 and who left their parental house between 1994 and 1995. This study tracks their tenure trajectories for 21 consecutive years starting in 1995 until 2015. The cohorts in our sample were the first who encountered the conditions on the deregulated housing market that are still in place in Sweden today. We followed these cohorts until they were between 39 and 46 years old and used sequence analysis to classify tenure trajectories. One result that stands out is the outstanding and increasing emphasis on home ownership in our sample, quite unlike the traditional picture of the Swedish housing market. Additionally, we found that resources in a broad sense and spatial context have a great impact on the type of trajectory individuals follow.

Gender-equality pioneering, or how three Nordic states celebrated 100 years of women’s suffrage

ABSTRACT The Nordic countries do not just identify strongly with gender equality: they also increasingly mobilize their pasts, as well as more contemporary notions held at the international level wherein the Nordics are seen as exceptionally gender equal, to highlight and brand themselves in the present as global pioneers of women’s rights. In this article, using nation-branding as an overarching perspective, we examine how this eagerness among the Nordics to be perceived as front-runners of gender rights affected the memory politics at play during the national commemoration of 100 years of women’s suffrage in Finland (2006–2007), Norway (2013) and Sweden (2018–2022). In addition, we ask what national narratives the respective jubilee celebrations helped to facilitate – and whether those narratives correspond with the images that function as the primary brands of Finland, Norway and Sweden today.

Change as technology in a Swedish secondary high school

ABSTRACT This article addresses the fact that local school practices in Sweden today seem to be under constant change as a consequence of the ongoing and forceful neoliberalisation of society that has been going on for about three decades. The pressure on teachers and school leaders has increased due to school rankings and quality assessment has become an important instrument for administrators and evaluators. In this ethnographic study, we describe and analyse school change; the reactions on change and the initiatives to employ school change within a secondary high school. Moreover, we develop our thinking on how this situation of constant school change may be viewed in the larger social scheme of things. Or to be more precise, this study focuses on school change that seems to have become one of the central features of the neoliberal educational system.

“I Have Had Myself as Experimental Object”: Ulla Bjerne and the Politics of Female Embodied Experience

ABSTRACT The authorship of Ulla Bjerne (1890–1969) is almost forgotten in Sweden today. This essay has the overarching aim of recovering her work and restoring it to the gendered contributions of Swedish twentieth-century literature, and in turn to assert its general importance. The analysis revolves around the significance of the body to literary representation and reception. In order to claim the authority to speak as a woman and outsider, Bjerne performed a new type of woman and testified to her experience. She asserted the significance of the body which devalued her, challenging the false claims to the universalism and transcendence of male subjectivity, and hence the literary values based on them. Bjerne aimed to give literary representation to unrepresented female embodied experience and to render an alternative female subjectivity, making a new type of woman accessible to thought. The analysis of her autobiographical trilogy shows how a feminist critique leads to an affirmation of female embodied experience through the political power of testimony, given literary representation through narrative form and imagery. At the end of the third volume, Botad oskuld (Innocence Remedied), radical non-belonging and constant movement become the prerequisites for the female subject in genesis. This is the foundation of Bjerne’s authorship, devoted to the communication of the unspoken female experience through the experience of her embodied self, in order to write as a woman and make herself, and thus the voice of a new type of woman, heard.

Efforts and Changes Around School Libraries in Sweden Today: When Great Things are Happening… How Do We Communicate with Authorities and Decision Makers?

As the IASL conference themes in Long Beach (2017), Istanbul (2018), and Dubrovnik (2019) have influenced progression, impact, and innovation around school libraries, it is interesting to focus on how ordinary school librarians best adopt fields where communication on a higher level marks the spot! The theme for this paper will work as a useful contribution to different methods, practically applied in Sweden for over ten years. Methods of communication that function as an inspiration to the higher governmental work and processes for school libraries, both on a national and international level. A wider scale on the following topics will be presented - mainly to create a developed knowledge adapted for school libraries. Knowledge ready to be transformed when participants return to their homes, communicating with their own contacts responsible for school libraries.

Effects of fertilization on soil CH4 and N2O fluxes in young Norway spruce stands

Climate change mitigation strategies have increased the demand for wood products, resulting in an urgent need to increase wood production. One approach is to fertilize forest land, but this can influence greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes within the ecosystem. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of forest N fertilization on soil CH4 and N2O fluxes in young Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) Karst.) stands in southern Sweden. The gas fluxes were measured using flow-through non-steady-state dark chambers. In the first, long-term, experiment, half of the stand was fertilized twice (once in 2014 and once in 2016) with 150 kg ha−1 of N, and gas flux measurements were taken throughout 2014–2017. In the second, dose, experiment, 0, 150, 300, or 450 kg ha−1 of N was added to the stand in April 2016, and gas flux measurements were taken during April-December 2016. The dose experiment showed that the sink strength of CH4 decreased with increasing amounts of N; the long-term experiment indicated that repeated fertilization decreased the CH4 sink strength over time. Additionally, the long-term experiment indicated that, while significantly higher N2O emissions were recorded in the fertilization years, this was not detected in subsequent years, suggesting the effect to be short-lived. In the dose experiment, fertilization tended to increase the N2O emissions relative to the amount of fertilizer. However, despite the significant effects of fertilization on these GHGs, the summed fluxes were a fraction of the net uptake of C at the sites, as recorded in another study. These findings suggest that fertilizing forest land with commercial NP or NPK fertilizers corresponding to 150 kg ha−1 of N, the level used in operational forestry in Sweden today, can be conducted without changing CH4 and N2O fluxes to any great extent.

Experiences of interventions and rehabilitation activities in connection with return-to-work from a gender perspective. A focus group study among employees on sick leave for common mental disorders.

Common mental disorders present the main reason for registered sick leave in Sweden today, and women are at a higher risk of such sick leave than men. The aim of this paper is to explore how employees on sick leave for common mental disorders experience interventions and rehabilitation activities during return-to-work, as well as to explore similarities and differences between the experiences of the interviewed women and men. A qualitative design was applied with semi-structured focus group interviews. Seven focus groups were conducted with a total of 28 participants (13 women and 15 men). The focus group discussions were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim, and data analyzed with conventional content analysis. Similarities and differences in the women's and men's experiences were written down in reflective notes during all steps of the analysis. The results comprise of one main category, "To be met with respect and recognition", and subcategories at two levels. Both similarities and differences emerged in how women and men sick-listed because of common mental disorders experienced return-to-work interventions and rehabilitation activities. It was important for both women and men to be met with respect and recognition, which was essential to all forms of help that the participants discussed during the focus group interviews. Women expressed a need for home-related interventions, whereas men expressed a need for organizational interventions to counter feelings of resignation at work. Women could also more easily understand their mental health condition as compared with men. A key implication of this study is that research on interventions and rehabilitation activities during return-to-work among employees on sick leave for common mental disorders should consider whether the findings are relevant equally to both women and men. Similarly, return-to-work professionals may need to consider possible differences among women and men on sick leave for common mental disorders, and to further customize offered interventions and rehabilitation activities. Doing so may help enhance the effectiveness of such interventions.

Strengthening paediatric competencies and educational skills among general paediatricians.

To develop a coherent programme that addresses the need for continuing professional development in general paediatrics and educational skills for senior paediatricians at outpatient clinics in Sweden today. Educational needs in the target group were investigated using a questionnaire. Themes and sub-themes extracted from responses informed the curriculum formulation of the continuing professional development (CPD) programme, which was completed using a variety of learning, assessment and evaluation methods. Forty-six paediatricians identified 355 clinical situations. Competencies in general paediatrics and educational skills were incorporated in a CPD programme, implemented in western Sweden between 13 October 2016 and 23 May 2019, with 23 learning modules and 18 participants (male/female 3/15, median age 55years). The participants' evaluation emphasised the importance of adult learning principles. Their responses to open reflective questions on 23 May 2109 suggested that the programme offered a learning environment in which they could develop their paediatric and educational practices and improve their mentorship, networks and work-based learning environment. They also described an enhanced feeling of joy at work. The involvement of experienced paediatricians in the programme formulation may be inspirational to clinicians and contribute to the definition, revitalisation and prioritisation of general paediatrics in Sweden in the future.

Praktisk och pastoral teologi i Svenska kyrkans prästutbildning

In this article, we discuss practical and pastoral theology in relation to Swedish theological education for future ordained clergy in the Church of Sweden. We look at how pastoral theology is understood in the Church of Sweden today and its relation to Practical Theology as an academic subject. We problematize the split between "academic" and "pastoral" theology and argue that pastoral theology should be understood as a part of the academic discipline Practical Theology. Practical Theology today is heavily theoretical and methodological, not least in the United States, the origin of much literature used in the Swedish context. Interesting as this may be from a research perspective, the discipline runs the risk of losing some of its relevance for undergraduate theological education. Here we discuss different aspects of pastoral and practical theology, and how they may feed into each other. We highlight the potential problems with a practical theology distancing itself from what has been called "the clerical paradigm" (in Sweden: pastoral theology), but also point to the importance of Practical Theology as an academic field in relation to ordination training. In Sweden, academic theology is still understood as supposedly "neutral", which complicates the relationship between "academic" and "pastoral" theology, as this obscures the influences from explicit normative and constructive practical theology on Swedish theological education. Drawing on practical theologians such as Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore and Mary McClintock Fulkerson, we discuss the normative and constructive ambitions in some practical theological schools of thought today. A changing understanding of Practical Theology may contribute to pastoral theology as a part of the ordination training in the Church of Sweden, but the normative assumptions need to be made explicit.