Prevalence and Predictors of Caregiver Distress in Six European Communities: Data From the IBenC Study, Using interRAI-Home Care Assessments.

Background: In a changing world where populations are ageing and older people need assistance to live at home, caring for an older relative can be challenging and have various consequences for caregivers.

Methods: In this cross-sectional study, caregiver distress in six European countries-Iceland, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands-was examined and compared. The study aimed to determine the prevalence of distress among caregivers of older people receiving home care in these six countries and identify if factors related to the older person's condition, such as health or function, predict it.

Environmental Conditions Modulate Warming Effects on Plant Litter Decomposition Globally.

Empirical studies worldwide show that warming has variable effects on plant litter decomposition, leaving the overall impact of climate change on decomposition uncertain. We conducted a meta-analysis of 109 experimental warming studies across seven continents, using natural and standardised plant material, to assess the overarching effect of warming on litter decomposition and identify potential moderating factors. We determined that at least 5.

How can family members of patients in the intensive care unit be supported? A systematic review of qualitative reviews, meta-synthesis, and novel recommendations for nursing care.

Background: Families are an important part of the intensive care unit (ICU) team. Being a family member in the ICU can be distressing due to interacting factors, such as the critical condition of the patient, the responsibility of acting as the patient's advocate, and partaking in decision-making related to treatment. Nurses need to be aware of the family's well-being throughout the patient's ICU stay.

Reading tea leaves worldwide: Decoupled drivers of initial litter decomposition mass-loss rate and stabilization.

The breakdown of plant material fuels soil functioning and biodiversity. Currently, process understanding of global decomposition patterns and the drivers of such patterns are hampered by the lack of coherent large-scale datasets. We buried 36,000 individual litterbags (tea bags) worldwide and found an overall negative correlation between initial mass-loss rates and stabilization factors of plant-derived carbon, using the Tea Bag Index (TBI).

Long COVID in Icelandic Children: A Matched Cohort Study of Nonspecific Symptoms Following SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

Purpose: Pediatric severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections are usually mild and the mortality rates are low, but concerns have been raised about long-term symptoms that may resemble other postinfectious syndromes. Studies with robust control groups and high response rates have been few.

Methods: We obtained identifiers for all 837 Icelandic children diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 by PCR between March 2020 and June 2021 and contacted them by telephone.

Locating helicopter ambulance bases in Iceland: efficient and fair solutions.

Background: Fixed-wing air ambulances play an important role in healthcare in rural Iceland. More frequent use of helicopter ambulances has been suggested to shorten response times and increase equity in access to advanced emergency care. In finding optimal base locations, the objective is often efficiency-maximizing the number of individuals who can be reached within a given time.

Plant traits and associated data from a warming experiment, a seabird colony, and along elevation in Svalbard.

The Arctic is warming at a rate four times the global average, while also being exposed to other global environmental changes, resulting in widespread vegetation and ecosystem change. Integrating functional trait-based approaches with multi-level vegetation, ecosystem, and landscape data enables a holistic understanding of the drivers and consequences of these changes. In two High Arctic study systems near Longyearbyen, Svalbard, a 20-year ITEX warming experiment and elevational gradients with and without nutrient input from nesting seabirds, we collected data on vegetation composition and structure, plant functional traits, ecosystem fluxes, multispectral remote sensing, and microclimate.

Home care nursing practice for older persons with heart failure living at home.

Aims And Objectives: To enhance knowledge of how older people with heart failure, living at home, manage their illness with the support of their family caregivers and home care nursing services.

Background: Heart failure monitoring and self-care have been important means of reducing the serious impact of heart failure. Drawing on theories of practice as enacted and conceptualising service users and their family caregivers as active, the idea of attunement was used to explore how home care nurses work in supporting them.

SARS-CoV-2 Infections in Icelandic Children: Close Follow-up of All Confirmed Cases in a Nationwide Study.

Introduction: Children are less likely to acquire SARS-CoV-2 infections than adults and when infected, usually have milder disease. True infection and complication rates are, however, difficult to ascertain. In Iceland, a strict test, trace and isolate policy was maintained from the start of the pandemic and offers more accurate information of the number of truly infected children in a nationwide study.

[Air ambulance service from Akureyri, Iceland 2012-2020].

Introduction: This study investigated the use of fixed-wing air ambulance in Iceland between 2012 and 2020.

Material: Medical records were filled out during each flight and information afterwards entered into an electronic database.

Methods: The annual number of patient transports nationwide; triage scale category; reason for transportation, age and gender; and departure and arrival airports were analyzed.

Changes in home care clients' characteristics and home care in five European countries from 2001 to 2014: comparison based on InterRAI - Home Care data.

Background: Policymakers advocate extended residence in private homes as people age, rather than relocation to long-term care facilities. Consequently, it is expected that older people living in their own homes will be frailer and have more complex health problems over time. Therefore, community care for aging people is becoming increasingly important to facilitate prevention of decline in physical and cognitive abilities and unnecessary hospital admission and transfer to a nursing home.

Integration of nursing services provided to patients with heart failure living at home: A longitudinal ethnographic study.

Aims And Objectives: This study aimed to (1) describe the development of integrated services between hospital-based heart failure nursing services and municipally located home care nurses' services and (2) identify the benefits of this collaboration for the development of home care nursing services.

Background: Governments have called for better integration of healthcare services to respond to demographic ageing. Clinical pathways have been used to enhance integration and assure continuity between primary and secondary care.

Community-based dementia care re-defined: Lessons from Iceland.

Studies of families caring for persons with dementia living at home often reflect feelings of being forgotten and abandoned by the authorities to shoulder the responsibility for care-giving. This has increased interest in how formal services can better support these families. This article analyses how health and social care professionals envision the needs of families of persons with dementia living in the community.

Nurses' use of monitors in patient surveillance: an ethnographic study on a coronary care unit.

Background: Physiological monitors are increasingly used for patient surveillance. Although nurses play a vital role in the observation, analysis and use of information obtained from these devices, difficulties in their use, coupled with the high frequency of false and nuisance monitor alarms, can lead to negative working conditions and threaten patient safety.

Aim: With the purpose of promoting effective monitor use and ensuring patient safety, the aim was to explore both how cardiovascular nurses use monitors in patient surveillance and the effect that the monitors have on the nurses' work.

Facilitation of a Person-Centered Approach in Health Assessment of patients with chronic pain: An Ethnographic Study.

A phenomenologically derived assessment tool, Hermes, was developed in a rehabilitation setting for adopting the central ideals of person-centered care and patient participation into health-assessment practices in nursing. This focused ethnographic study aimed at exploring the feasibility of using Hermes for enabling the application of these ideals into assessment of patients with chronic pain upon admission to a rehabilitation center. Participants were patients with chronic pain, enrolled in rehabilitation, and their nurses.

'Holding on to life': An ethnographic study of living well at home in old age.

In recent years, much attention has been paid to how older people living at home can remain independent and manage their illness themselves, while less attention has been given to those who have become frail and need assistance with challenges of everyday life. In this article, I drew on Latimer's formulation of care for frail older people as relational and world-making and on Foucault's work related to the care of the self in developing an understanding of how frail older persons manage to live well at home in the final years of their lives. I use data from an ethnographic study of home care nursing in the homes of 15 frail older people to develop an understanding of how their care at home can be developed.

'I try to make a net around each patient': home care nursing as relational practice.

Background: As a result of restructuring, home care is increasingly defined in a narrow, task-based way, undermining the holistic nature of practice. Recent practice theories can aid us in articulating the nature of this important, yet often invisible practice.

Aim: My aim in this article was to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the nature of home care nursing practice.

Patients' Experiences With Multiple Myeloma: A Meta-Aggregation of Qualitative Studies.

Problem Identification: To systematically review qualitative evidence regarding patients' experiences of living with multiple myeloma. The main objective was to gain structured understanding of this experience, which is a prerequisite for advancing nursing care and ensuring it is effective.
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Development of Hermes, a New Person-Centered Assessment Tool in Nursing Rehabilitation, Through Action Research.

In this article, an action-research project has been outlined, aimed at exploring ways for developing an assessment tool, underpinned by phenomenology, which would enhance a person-centered approach to the participation of patients in nursing assessment and care planning in rehabilitation. Participants were nurses in physical rehabilitation and a consultant. Data were collected by interviews and observation of the documentation on the tool.

Reminiscence work with older people: the development of a historical reminiscence tool.

Aims And Objectives: (i) To explore how reminiscence workers in older people's care define their work and (ii) to describe the development of a historical reminiscence tool containing historical developments from the older person's passage through life, intended to support reminiscence work.

Background: Reminiscence work refers to the recall of past occurrences in a client's life with the intention of enhancing well-being, social skills and self-image.

Design: The design of the historical reminiscence tool was informed by the model of intervention design developed by van Meijel et al.

'It's my life': autonomy and people with intellectual disabilities.

This article discusses autonomy in the lives of adults with intellectual disabilities. The article draws on inclusive research in Iceland with 25 women and 16 men and employs ideas of relational autonomy from the perspectives of the Nordic relational approach to disability. In this article, we examine autonomy in relation to private life, that is, homes and daily activities.

The place of standardisation in home care practice: an ethnographic study.

Aims And Objectives: To explore the benefits and shortcomings of using standardised work methods in home care nursing.

Background: Health care is increasingly shaped by the use of standardised work methods. This trend is reflected in the use of management tools aimed at monitoring service quality and efficiency, as well as in the evidence-based movement that has led to a shift in focus from the practitioner to the knowledge found in guidelines and clinical protocols.