Department of Sociology, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS), Stockholm University, Karolinska Institutet, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: alexander.miething@sociology.su.se.
Social capital research has recognized the relevance of occupational network contacts for individuals' life chances and status attainment, and found distinct associations dependent on ethnic background. A still fairly unexplored area is the health implications of occupational networks. The current approach thus seeks to study the relationship between access to occupational social capital and depressive symptoms in early adulthood, and to examine whether the associations differ between persons with native Swedish parents and those with parents born in Iran and the former Yugoslavia. The two-wave panel comprised 19- and 23-year-old Swedish citizens whose parents were born in either Sweden, Iran or the former Yugoslavia. The composition of respondents' occupational networks contacts was measured with a so-called position generator. Depressive symptoms were assessed with a two-item depression screener. A population-averaged model was used to estimate the associations between depressive symptoms and access to occupational contact networks. Similar levels of depressive symptoms in respondents with parents born in Sweden and Yugoslavia were contrasted by a notably higher prevalence of these conditions in those with an Iranian background. After socioeconomic conditions were adjusted for, regression analysis showed that the propensity for depressive symptoms in women with an Iranian background increased with a higher number of manual class contacts, and decreased for men and women with Iranian parents with a higher number of prestigious occupational connections. The respective associations in persons with native Swedish parents and parents from the former Yugoslavia are partly reversed. Access to occupational contact networks, but also perceived ethnic identity, explained a large portion of the ethnic variation in depression. Mainly the group with an Iranian background seems to benefit from prestigious occupational contacts. Among those with an Iranian background, social status concerns and expected marginalization in manual class occupations may have contributed to their propensity for depressive symptoms.
Adaptation and psychometric evaluation of the short version of Family Sense of Coherence Scale in a sample of persons with cancer in the palliative stage and their family members.
For patients' entire families, it can be challenging to live with cancer during the palliative stage. However, a sense of coherence buffers stress and could help health professionals identify families that require support. Therefore, the short version of the Family Sense of Coherence Scale (FSOC-S) was translated, culturally adapted, and validated in a Swedish sample.
Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of the FSOC-S into Swedish was conducted in accordance with the World Health Organization's Process for Translation and Adaptation of Research Instruments guidelines. Participants were recruited from two oncology clinics and two palliative centers in Sweden.
Content validity was supported by experts (n = 7), persons with cancer (n = 179), and family members (n = 165). Homogeneity among items was satisfactory for persons with cancer and family members (item-total correlations were 0.45?0.70 and 0.55?0.72, respectively) as well as internal consistency (ordinal alpha = 0.91 and 0.91, respectively). Factor analyses supported unidimensionality. FSOC-S correlated (rs > 0.3) with hope, anxiety, and symptoms of depression, which supported convergent validity. The test-retest reliability for items ranged between fair and good (kw = 0.37?0.61).
The FSOC-S has satisfactory measurement properties to assess family sense of coherence in persons with cancer and their family members. FSOC-S could be used to identify family members who experience low levels of perceived family sense of coherence which provides health care professionals with insight into families' needs and ability to live with cancer in the palliative stage.
Nurses encounter complex ethical dilemmas in everyday nursing care. It is important for nurses to have moral courage to act in these situations which threaten patients' safety or their good care. However, there is lack of research of moral courage.
This study describes nurses' experiences of care situations demanding moral courage and their actions in these situations.
A qualitative descriptive research design was applied. The data were collected with an open-ended question in the questionnaire used in validation of the Nurses' Moral Courage Scale. The sample consisted of 286 nurses from four different clinical fields in a major university hospital in Finland, providing a total of 611 answers. Data were analyzed using inductive content analysis.
The study followed the commonly recognized principles of good scientific practice. The use of data was authorized by the developer of the instrument, the data collector, and the participating hospital. Ethical approval was obtained from the university ethics committee.
Nurses acted morally courageously in most situations but sometimes they failed to do so. Although situations demanding moral courage varied, they could be categorized into seven main domains relating to colleagues, physicians, patients, relatives, nurses themselves, managers, and organizations. Nurses acted in the situations in different ways. The main acts in solving the situations were verbal communication or immediate action, such as interrupting of action.
Care situations demanding moral courage focus on good and safe patient care and the patient's good is at the center of attention. The situations are mostly related to the activities of other healthcare professionals. Findings may be applied in developing ethical nursing care through basic and continuing nursing education. Research is needed on the moral courage of physicians and managers, as well as on patients' and their relatives' experiences of care situations demanding moral courage.
A healthy and productive working life has attracted attention owing to future employment and demographic challenges.
The aim was to translate and adapt the Work Role Functioning Questionnaire (WRFQ) 2.0 to Norwegian and Danish.
The WRFQ is a self-administered tool developed to identify health-related work limitations. Standardised cross-cultural adaptation procedures were followed in both countries' translation processes. Direct translation, synthesis, back translation and consolidation were carried out successfully.
A pre-test among 78 employees who had returned to work after sickness absence found idiomatic issues requiring reformulation in the instructions, four items in the Norwegian version, and three items in the Danish version, respectively. In the final versions, seven items were adjusted in each country. Psychometric properties were analysed for the Norwegian sample (n?=?40) and preliminary Cronbach's alpha coefficients were satisfactory. A final consensus process was performed to achieve similar titles and introductions.
The WRFQ 2.0 cross-cultural adaptation to Norwegian and Danish was performed and consensus was obtained. Future validation studies will examine validity, reliability, responsiveness and differential item response. The WRFQ can be used to elucidate both individual and work environmental factors leading to a more holistic approach in work rehabilitation.
Cultural competence is an essential component in nursing. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the level of cultural competence of graduating nursing students, to identify associated background factors to cultural competence, and furthermore to establish whether teaching multicultural nursing was implemented in nursing education.
A structured Cultural Competence Assessment Tool was used in a correlational design with a sample of 295 nursing students in southern Finland.
The level of cultural competence was moderate, and the majority of students had studied multicultural nursing. Minority background (p = .001), frequency of interacting with different cultures (p = .002), linguistic skills (p = .002), and exchange studies (p = .024) were positively associated to higher cultural competence.
To improve cultural competence in students, nursing education should provide continuous opportunities for students to interact with different cultures, develop linguistic skills, and provide possibilities for internationalization both at home and abroad.
Previous studies indicate a variety of health challenges among musicians. Despite this, less is known concerning the roles of work-related and personal factors associated with the musicians' mental health.
We wanted to investigate personal and work-related demands and resources associated with psychological distress in professional musicians.
Based on a sample of 1,607 of professional Norwegian musicians, we conducted a hierarchical multiple regression analysis.
We found that personal factors such as level of neuroticism and sense of mastery had the strongest association with PD. Extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, job demands and social support did also contribute to distress in our final statistical model, but to a lesser degree. Somewhat surprisingly, work-family conflict, effort-reward imbalance and job control were not associated with PD in our final model.
Our results show that both work-related factors (job demands and social support) and personal resources (personality and sense of mastery) are associated with PD among musicians in this cross-sectional study. Prospective research is needed in order to investigate these associations further. Meanwhile, we suggest to emphasize early development of sense of mastery and social support in music education and industry.
Fear of pain is highly correlated with pain report and physiological measures of arousal when pain is inflicted. The Fear of Pain Questionnaire III (FPQ-III) and The Fear of Pain Questionnaire Short Form (FPQ-SF) are self-report inventories developed for assessment of fear of pain (FOP). A previous study assessed the fit of the FPQ-III and the FPQ-SF in a Norwegian non-clinical sample and proved poor fit of both models. This inspired the idea of testing the possibility of a Norwegian FOP-model.
A Norwegian FOP-model was examined by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) in a sample of 1112 healthy volunteers. Then, the model fit of the FPQ-III, FPQ-SF and the Norwegian FOP-model (FPQ-NOR) were compared by Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Sex neutrality was explored by examining model fit, validity and reliability of the 3 models amongst male and female subgroups.
The EFA suggested either a 4-, a 5- or a 6-factor Norwegian FOP model. The eigenvalue criterion supported the suggested 6-factor model, which also explained most of the variance and was most interpretable. A CFA confirmed that the 6-factor model was better than the two 4- and 5-factor models. Furthermore, the CFA used to test the fit of the FPQ-NOR, the FPQ-III and the FPQ-SF showed that the FPQ-NOR had the best fit of the 3 models, both in the whole sample and in sex sub-groups.
A 6-factor model for explaining and measuring FOP in Norwegian samples was identified and termed the FPQ-NOR. This new model constituted six factors and 27 items, conceptualized as Minor, Severe, Injection, Fracture, Dental, and Cut Pain. The FPQ-NOR had the best fit overall and in male- and female subgroups, probably due to cross-cultural differences in FOP.
This study highlights the importance on exploratory analysis of FOP-instruments when applied to different countries or cultures. As the FPQ-III is widely used in both research and clinical settings, it is important to ensure that the models construct validity is high. Country specific validation of FOP in both clinical and non-clinical samples is recommended.
General Intensive Care Unit, Department of Perioperative Medicine and Intensive Care, Karolinska University Hospital, Solna, SE-17176 Stockholm, Sweden. Electronic address: johan.thermaenius@sll.se.
Measuring patients satisfaction is an important part of continuous quality improvement in health care. In intensive care, family satisfaction is often used as a proxy for patient experience. At present, no suitable instrument to measure this has been fully validated in Sweden. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire intended to evaluate families' satisfaction of quality of care in Swedish intensive care units.
Based on literature and the modification of pertinent items in two existing North American questionnaires, a Swedish questionnaire was developed. Content validity was assessed by experts, and the cognitive method Think Aloud was used with twelve family members of intensive care patients in two different intensive care units. Data was analysed using qualitative content analysis.
Seven items in the questionnaire were identified as problematic, causing eight problems concerning questioning of content and 23 concerning misunderstanding. Six of these items were changed in order to be understood the way they were intended, and one item was removed.
A family satisfaction questionnaire applicable in Swedish intensive care units has been developed and validated for respondents' understanding of the questions being asked. However, further psychometric testing should be performed when more data are available.
Research Unit of Nursing Science and Health Management, University of Oulu, Oulu University Hospital, Oulu, Finland. Electronic address: kristina.mikkonen@oulu.fi.
Mentoring in clinical settings is an important factor in the development of nursing students' professional knowledge and competences, but more knowledge of mentors' current and required competences is needed to improve nursing students' clinical learning.
This study aimed to develop and test an evidence-based model of mentoring nursing students in clinical practice.
An international cross-sectional survey coordinated in five European countries: Finland, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia and Spain.
Mentors, 4980 registered nurses working in both primary and specialist healthcare organizations, were invited to participate in the study during 2016-2019. The final sample consisted of 1360 mentors (mean age 41.9 ± 11). Data were collected with background questions and the Mentor Competence Instrument. The instrument was psychometrically validated then the data were used to construct a Structural Equation Model (SEM) with Full Imputation Maximum Likelihood (FIML) estimation.
All of six hypotheses were verified. In summary: mentors' characteristics related to their motivation and reflection are positively related to mentoring practices in the workplace, which (together with constructive feedback) are positively related to and foster goal-orientation in students' clinical learning and student-centered evaluation. All parameters in the SEM model were significant and the model's fit indexes were verified (RMSEA = 0.055; SRMR = 0.083; CFI = 0.914, TLI = 0.909).
Our evidence-based modeling confirms the research hypotheses about mentorship, and identifies focal competences for designing mentors' education to improve students' clinical learning and establish a common European mentoring model. Mentorship is important for both healthcare organizations and educational systems to enhance students' clinical competences, professional growth and commitment to the nursing profession and organizational environments.
The benefits of process-oriented group supervision are difficult to evaluate, as the validity and reliability of the existing instruments have been questioned. The aim was to develop and test the psychometric properties of a questionnaire in order to evaluate the effects of process-oriented group supervision on nursing students during their three-year nursing education. A 55-item Process-oriented Group Supervision Questionnaire (PGSQ) with a developmental design was formulated on the basis of a literature review and the expectations of nursing students who participated in a three-year nursing education programme (N=176). Construct validity and internal consistency reliability were tested at the end of each study year: year 1 (T1), year 2 (T2), and year 3 (T3) by means of exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha coefficient. An adequate explorative factor analysis (principal component analysis, varimax rotation) with an Eigenvalue >1.0 and factor loadings >0.40, reduced the questionnaire to 18 items comprising three factors labelled educative, supportive and developmental, which explained 60.2% at T1, 71.8% at T2, and 69.3% at T3 of the total cumulative variance. The corresponding Cronbach's alpha coefficient figures were 0.89 (T1), 0.94 (T2) and 0.93 (T3). The 18-item PGSQ is considered to be a short and useful tool due to its satisfactory validity and reliability figures.
