Examining quality function deployment in safety promotion in Sweden.

The first-hand needs and demands of laypersons are not always considered when safety promotion programmes are being developed. We compared focal areas for interventions identified from residents' statements of safety needs with focal areas for interventions identified by local government professionals in a Swedish urban community certified by the international Safe Community movement supported by the World Health Organization. Quantitative and qualitative data on self-expressed safety needs from 787 housing residents were transformed into an intervention design, using the quality function deployment (QFD) technique and compared with the safety intervention programme developed by professionals at the municipality administrative office.

The hopes of West African refugees during resettlement in northern Sweden: a 6-year prospective qualitative study of pathways and agency thoughts.

Background: Little is known about how positive phenomena can support resettlement of refugees in a new country. The aim of this study was to examine the hopeful thinking in a group of West African quota refugees at arrival and after 6 years in Sweden and compare these thoughts to the views of resettlement support professionals.

Method: The primary study population comprised 56 adult refugees and 13 resettlement professionals.

Quality indicators for implementation of safety promotion: towards valid and reliable global certification of local programmes.

The theoretical underpinnings of safety promotion have not yet been integrated with implementation practice to ascertain between-community programme quality. This study sets out to develop a framework for verifying of the quality of community-based safety-promotion programmes in the global context. We analysed the certification indicators deployed in the international Safe Community movement in light of systems theory.

Residents' perspectives on safety support needs in different types of housing areas.

Background: Knowledge about conditions that are understood to support safety is important for planning residential safety promotion in interactions with residents. How residents themselves perceive and reason about their own safety needs has seldom been investigated in Scandinavia.

Aim: To identify factors perceived to be necessary to feel safe by residents in areas with blocks of flats and detached houses.

Health professionals' attitudes towards using a Web 2.0 portal for child and adolescent diabetes care: qualitative study.

Background: The Internet, created and maintained in part by third-party apomediation, has become a dynamic resource for living with a chronic disease. Modern management of type 1 diabetes requires continuous support and problem-based learning, but few pediatric clinics offer Web 2.0 resources to patients as part of routine diabetes care.

Infrastructural requirements for local implementation of safety policies: the discordance between top-down and bottom-up systems of action.

Background: Safety promotion is planned and practised not only by public health organizations, but also by other welfare state agencies, private companies and non-governmental organizations. The term 'infrastructure' originally denoted the underlying resources needed for warfare, e.g.

What promotes sustainability in Safe Community programmes?

Background: The theory and practice of safety promotion has traditionally focused on the safety of individuals. This study also includes systems, environments, and organizations. Safety promotion programmes are designed to support community health initiatives taking a bottom-up approach.

Applying motivational interviewing to counselling overweight and obese children.

The aim of this study was to identify barriers and facilitators to nurses' application of motivational interviewing (MI) to counselling overweight and obese children aged 5 and 7 years, accompanied by their parents. Ten welfare centre and school health service nurses trained and practiced MI for 6 months, then participated in focus group interviews concerning their experiences with applying MI to counselling overweight and obese children. Important barriers were nurses' lack of recognition that overweight and obesity among children constitute a health problem, problem ambivalence among nurses who felt that children's weight might be a problem although there was no immediate motivation to do anything and parents who the nurses believed were unmotivated to deal with their children's weight problem.

Linking drinking to injury--causal attribution of injury to alcohol intake among patients in a Swedish emergency room.

This study analysed the drinking patterns and motivation to change drinking behaviours among injury patients who acknowledged alcohol as a factor in their injuries. A cross-sectional study was conducted over 18 months at a Swedish emergency department. A total of 1930 injury patients aged 18 - 70 years were enrolled in the study (76.

Frequency of heavy episodic drinking among nonfatal injury patients attending an emergency room.

This study investigated the relationship between frequency of heavy episodic drinking and nonfatal injury in four categories: environment, external cause, diagnosis, and activity at the time of injury. Data were collected over 18 months at the emergency room facility of a Swedish hospital. Injury patients aged 18-70 years answered an alcohol screening questionnaire.

Can screening and simple written advice reduce excessive alcohol consumption among emergency care patients?

Aims: Emergency care patients have an overrepresentation of risky drinkers. Despite the evidence on the effectiveness of a short feedback on screening or self-help material, most studies performed so far have required considerable time from staff and thus been difficult to implement in the real world. The present study evaluates the effect of the screening and whether simple written advice has any additional effect on risky drinking.

Feasibility of a computerized alcohol screening and personalized written advice in the ED: opportunities and obstacles.

This study evaluates the feasibility of a computerized alcohol screening and intervention in patients seeking care at an emergency department. The aim of the study was to explore prevailing attitudes among nursing staff to alcohol prevention in general and the computerized screening concept before the introduction of the computerized screening procedure. Interviews were performed with six nursing staff members and a written questionnaire applied to all staff participating in training before the implementation of the concept.

Routine screening for risky alcohol consumption at an emergency department using the AUDIT-C questionnaire.

A questionnaire including the three AUDIT-C items was used to screen for alcohol use among trauma patients. The aim was to display, in a pragmatic way, how the AUDIT-C scores can be converted into different levels and kind of risky drinking. Using AUDIT-C scores with a cut-off score of 4 points for women and 5 for men indicated that 28% of the women and 40% of the men were risky drinkers.

Shame-inducing encounters. Negative emotional aspects of sickness-absentees' interactions with rehabilitation professionals.

There is little knowledge on how sickness absentees experience encounters with rehabilitation professionals. This paper explores and describes negative emotions ("shame" in a broad sense) experienced by individuals on sick leave in their interactions with rehabilitation professionals. We performed a qualitative analysis of data from five focus-group interviews.

Views of laypersons on the role employers play in return to work when sick-listed.

Sickness absenteeism is an increasing public health problem, but few studies have examined the views of laypersons regarding factors that promote return to work. The present investigation concerns the opinions of such individuals on the role employers play in this context. Data from five focus-group interviews of laypersons with experience of long-term sickness absence were subjected to grounded theory analysis.

Identification and brief treatment of alcohol problems with medical patients: an international perspective.

This article summarizes the proceedings of a symposium at the 2002 RSA meeting in San Francisco, California. The chair was Peter Monti and co-chair was Nancy Barnett. The aim of the symposium was to bring together researchers from the United States, Sweden, and Mexico to present current findings on the development and implementation of screening and intervention research in Emergency Departments (ED).