[Transcultural encounter empowering the vulnerable patient].

The Swedish word, 'bemötande', has no direct equivalent in English but refers to contact, treatment and the relationship with a patient. 'Bemötande', in the context of care, concerns amongst other things how the session is conducted and takes place. The experience of a positive 'bemötande' is important for the patient and relatives to be able to feel trust and confidence, as well as to create a well-functioning working alliance.

Allowing for the opposite: the parents of asthmatic children cooperate by making use of each other's differences.

This article focuses on one of the interactive processes that parents use to cope with their child's asthma. The concept allowing for the opposite was developed in the course of a clinical project designed to improve consultation methods in pediatric allergy care. We examined material from 67 conversations carried out with 22 heterosexual couples held with two family therapists: one male pediatrician and one female social worker.

Inflammatory bowel disease and self-esteem in adolescence.

Aim: To compare the self-esteem of adolescents suffering from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) with that of healthy adolescents, and to identify factors affecting self-esteem in the presence of IBD.

Methods: A self-assessment questionnaire, 'I think I am' (ITIA), was completed by 71 (41 boys) out of 77 adolescents (10-16 years) with IBD. Of the participating adolescents, 23 had Crohn's disease, 44 had ulcerative colitis and 4 had indeterminate colitis.

Adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease feel ambivalent towards their parents' concern for them.

This is a grounded theory study to identify concepts for describing how adolescents with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) respond to their parents' concern for them. Ten adolescent boys and seven girls were interviewed. In the analysis four main categories emerged: ambivalence, ability/inability, compliance/resistance and trust/distrust.