Background: Sick leave and ill health due to stress are significant concerns today and negatively affect the individual, the organisations, and the community. High demands, multitasking, and inexplicit boundaries between different occupations contribute to an explanation. However, research shows that more qualitative studies are needed to better understand this issue and how to promote health in the working population.

Objective: The study aims to explore participants’ experiences of maintaining or regaining occupational health in their everyday life, including paid work, several years after sick leave.

Method: Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted and analysed using inductive content analysis. The analysis resulted in one major theme and three categories describing the current experiences handling their everyday life and work situations.

Results: The result showed that returning to work and maintaining occupational health after sick leave due to occupational ill health calls for “flex-ability”. The term describes that individuals need to be open to change and adapt to new challenges at work and in everyday life.

Conclusion: The findings highlight the importance of health-promotive organisations where the individual factor is more considered. Furthermore, a broader view of health-promotive work in society where work is included in everyday life, instead of divided into and outside of work, is needed. © The Author(s) 2025.

Background: Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly introduced into healthcare, promising improved efficiency and clinical decision-making. While research has mainly focused on AI in hospital settings and physician perspectives, less is known about how AI may challenge the values that guide nursing practices. This study explores nurses’ perceptions of wound care in municipal home healthcare and the opportunities and challenges with the integration of AI technologies into their practices.

Methods: An exploratory qualitative study using semi-structured interviews was conducted with 14 registered nurses from two municipalities in Sweden. Participants were recruited through purposive sampling, and data were collected through individual interviews, either in person or via video call. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed inductively, inspired by the Gioia methodology. This approach allowed themes to emerge from the data while maintaining close alignment with participants’ perspectives. In a subsequent phase, the data were interpreted through the lens of Mol’s Logic of Care to deepen understanding of the relational, embodied, and adaptive nature of wound care. Ethical approval was obtained, and the study adhered to the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ).

Results: Three interconnected dimensions emerged from the data: relational, embodied, and adaptive practices. Nurses emphasized the importance of relational work in wound care, highlighting the trust and continuity necessary for effective wound care, which AI-driven automation might overlook. Embodied practices, such as sensory engagement through touch, sight, and smell, were central to wound care, raising nurses’ concerns about AI’s ability to replicate these nuanced judgments. Adaptive practices, including improvisation and situational awareness in non-standardized home environments, were presented as challenges for AI integration, as existing digital systems were perceived as rigid and often increased administrative burdens rather than streamlining care.

Conclusions: Home healthcare nurses’ perspectives highlight the complex interplay between technology and caregiving. While AI could support documentation and diagnostic processes, its current limitations in relational, sensory, and adaptive aspects raised the nurses’ concerns about its suitability for wound care in home settings. Successful AI integration should account for the realities of nursing practice, ensuring that technological tools enhance the embodied, relational, and adaptive dimensions of wound care. Applying Mol’s Logic of Care helps illuminate how good care emerges through ongoing, situated practices that resist full automation. Future research could further explore how AI aligns with professional nursing values and decision-making in real-world care settings.

 © The Author(s) 2025.

Background: Parents’ perceptions of children’s sleep problems when using a weighted blanket could enhance the understanding of challenges faced by families with ADHD and sleep problems. This is in alignment with a client-centred approach. Acknowledging, what parents perceive as a problem in a family context.

Aim: To explore changes in parents’ perceptions of their children’s sleep problems before and after participation in a sleep intervention with weighted blankets.

Methods: Children with ADHD (n = 45) aged 6–14 participated in a sleep intervention with weighted blankets. Data-collection (baseline + 16-week) using the Children’s Sleep Habits Questionnaire.

Results: Common sleep problems, such as bedtime resistance, daytime sleepiness, sleep onset delay, and sleep duration, were reported to have improved in 50–75% of the children after using a weighted blanket, according to their parents. Changes were seen also for the less commonly reported parasomnias and nightly awakenings, and these problems were rarely perceived as persistent.

Conclusions: Reported improvements covered various sleep domains, though some sleep issues persisted. Future evaluation of the effects of weighted blanket should assess multiple dimensions of sleep, before and after use.

Significance: The client-centred approach, including parents’ perceptions of children’s sleep problems, is important in the evaluation of weighted blankets for children with ADHD. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

The value and meaning in occupations (ValMO) model was developed by researchers at Lund University in Sweden. The model strives to capture and explain the rich diversity of our daily occupations, focusing on their value and meaning. Understanding the dimensions of occupation enables using the power embedded in occupation for health, while highlighting how occupations or lack of occupations can threaten health and well-being. Central to reasoning in the ValMO model is discriminating between a generally named activity and a unique occupation. Included are also the elements of time perspectives and experience. Placing the ‘doing’ in a time perspective makes it possible to understand how our occupations are shaped, developed, and interconnected over time. There is also a focus on the experiential perspective, where individuals’ subjective experiences and feelings during the ‘doing’ become essential. In this way, the ‘doing’ becomes not just a series of actions but a wealth of meanings and possibilities, where each action is deeply rooted in the unique combination of individual, place, and time. In response to the growing global challenges that individuals face in their everyday lives, there has been a recent inclusion in the model of an ecoethical sustainability perspective on human actions. © 2025 selection and editorial matter, Moses N. Ikiugu, Steven D. Taff, Sarah Kantartzis and Nick Pollard; individual chapters, the contributors.

I ett palliativt sammanhang, nära livets slut, utmanas och hotas den trygga vardagen. Det blir särskilt viktigt att bevara och trygga delar av vardagen, både för den som ska lämna och för dem som stannar kvar. Med avstamp i vardagen, den vanliga lunken och vanorna, synliggör författarna arbetsterapiprofessionens ansvarsområde i den palliativa vården. Författarna använder genomgående ValMO-modellens begrepp och teoretiska resonemang för att beskriva människors vardag och görande, och samband med hälsa och livskvalitet i livets slutskede. Varje avsnitt illustreras med fallbeskrivningar för att synliggöra situationer som arbetsterapeuten kan möta. Fallbeskrivningar används också för att beskriva arbetsterapeutens ansvar, åtgärder och roll i teamet. Arbetsterapi inom palliativ vård är skriven för arbetsterapeuter och arbetsterapistudenter som arbetar eller kommer att arbeta med palliativ vård.

BACKGROUND: People with late effects of polio (LEoP) may need rehabilitation to manage everyday life but knowledge of the benefits of interdisciplinary rehabilitation is limited. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate changes in performance and satisfaction with performance of activities among people with LEoP following interdisciplinary rehabilitation. METHODS: A pre-post retrospective study based on data on 102 participants with LEoP from a rehabilitation clinic. Changes in performance and satisfaction with performance of daily activities before and after interdisciplinary rehabilitation were assessed with the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM). RESULTS: There were statistically significant increases in the mean performance and mean satisfaction with performance COPM scores from admission to discharge. Twenty-three percent and 19% of the participants, respectively, had improved their performance and satisfaction with performance, 25% and 26% of the participants had no changes, and 19% and 22% of the participants, respectively, rated their performance and satisfaction lower at discharge compared to admission. CONCLUSION: Interdisciplinary rehabilitation can enhance self-rated performance and satisfaction with performance of daily activities among people with LEoP. Future studies of rehabilitation for people with LEoP should use a prospective design and capture the participants’ process of change related to their rehabilitation period. © 2024 – The authors. Published by IOS Press.

Background: The electronic medication administration record (eMAR) is an eHealth system that has replaced the traditional paper-based medication administration used in many healthcare settings. Research has highlighted that eHealth technologies can change working methods and professional roles in both expected and unexpected ways. To date, there is sparse research that has explored how nurses and nurse assistants (NA) in home healthcare experience eMAR in relation to their work environment. Aim: The aim was to explore how nurses and nurse assistants experienced their work environment, in terms of job-demand, control, and support in a Swedish home healthcare setting where an electronic medication administration record had been implemented to facilitate delegation of medical administration. Method: We took a qualitative approach, where focus groups were used as data collection method. The focus groups included 16 nurses and nine NAs employed in a Swedish municipality where an eMAR had been implemented 6 months before the first focus groups were performed. The analysis adapted the job-demand-control-support model, by condensing the professionals' experiences into the three categories of demand, control, and support, in alignment with the model. Results: NAs experienced high levels of job demand and low levels of job control. The use of the eMAR limited NAs' ability to control their work, in terms of priorities, content, and timing. In contrast, the nurses described demands as high but manageable, and described having a high level of control. Both professions found the eMar supportive. Conclusion: Nurses and NAs in home healthcare experienced changes in their work environment regarding demand, control, and support when an eMAR was implemented to facilitate delegation of medical administration. In general, nurses were satisfied with the eMAR. However, NAs felt that the eMAR did not cover all aspects of their daily work. Healthcare organisations should be aware of the changes that digitalisation processes entail in the work environment of nurses and NAs in home healthcare. © 2024 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Nordic College of Caring Science.

Background

The implementation of e-health is transforming healthcare. The acknowledged benefits of digitalization are quality improvement, patient empowerment, and increased efficiency. The mobility of e-health makes it especially suitable for home healthcare. eMar is a common e-health technology used in Swedish home healthcare. Decisions about technology design are governed by developers’ perceptions of intended users. These perceptions can be identified in the description and promotion of a specific product.

Purpose

The purpose of the presentation is to contribute to increased knowledge about the values entailed in a specific eMar used in Swedish home healthcare, and furthermore to discuss how these values conform with existing national missions such as people-centered care.

Method

Information consisting of sales materials about a specific eMar used in several Swedish municipalities has been analyzed through critical discourse analysis to visualize values embedded in the eMar.

Findings

Preliminary results show that the provider of the specific eMar describes care in terms borrowed from the industrial sector, such as shift changes and production of care. Good and safe care is defined as the right person receiving the right medicine at the right time. Furthermore, the app is advertised as a tool for monitoring assuming that the performance of tasks can be influenced through the remote control of the employee. The eMar is described as representing new and modern technologies that are expected to raise the status of healthcare professions and facilitate the recruitment of employees.

Svensk primärvård står inför stora utmaningar med en åldrande befolkning och ett ökat antal personer som vårdas i hemmet (Landers et al., 2016). Digital teknik implementeras med förhoppning om att förbättra kommunikationen mellan vårdpersonal och underlätta möjligheterna till egenvård och tillgänglighet för patienter (Socialstyrelsen, 2021). Tidigare studier visar att användningen av digital teknik kan förändra det professionella landskapet (Petersson, 2020) och påverka arbetsmiljö och arbetets innehåll (Ertner, 2019). Trots att teknik som implementeras inom vården bör vara anpassad till hälso- och sjukvårdspersonalens arbete och värderingar (Palmer et al., 2019; Reed et al., 2019) är sjuksköterskor sällan involverade i beslut kring utformning eller implementering av ny teknik (von Gerich et al., 2022). Det behövs mer kunskap om hur digitaliseringen kan ske i samproduktion med sjuksköterskor och utformas så att en god arbetsmiljö bibehålls.

Presentationen syftar till att beskriva sjuksköterskors arbete och arbetsmiljö inom hemsjukvården och hur dessa kunskaper kan användas vid utvecklingen och implementeringen av framtida digital teknik.

Individuella semi-strukturerade intervjuer har genomförts med 20 sjuksköterskor som arbetar på vårdcentral och inom hemsjukvård i två halländska kommuner. Intervjuerna har analyserats genom kvalitativ innehållsanalys (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Implementeringsteoretiska ramverk används för att undersöka hur kunskapen kan inkorporeras vid innovation och implementering av digitala tekniker inom vårdverksamheter (Nilsen, 2015).

Preliminära resultat kommer att presenteras vid konferensen.

Referenser

Ertner, S. M. (2019). Enchanting, evoking, and affecting: the invisible work of technology implementation in homecare. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies, 9(S5), 33-47.

Hsieh, H.-F., & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis. Qualitative health research, 15(9), 1277-1288.

Landers, S., Madigan, E., Leff, B., Rosati, R. J., McCann, B. A., Hornbake, R., MacMillan, R., Jones, K., Bowles, K., Dowding, D., Lee, T., Moorhead, T., Rodriguez, S., & Breese, E. (2016). The Future of Home Health Care: A Strategic Framework for Optimizing Value. Home Health Care Management & Practice, 28(4), 262-278.

Nilsen, P. (2015). Making sense of implementation theories, models and frameworks. Implementation science : IS, 10(1), 53-53.

Palmer, V. J., Weavell, W., Callander, R., Piper, D., Richard, L., Maher, L., Boyd, H., Herrman, H., Furler, J., & Gunn, J. (2019). The Participatory Zeitgeist: an explanatory theoretical model of change in an era of coproduction and codesign in healthcare improvement. Medical humanities, 45(3), 247-257.

Petersson, L. (2020). Paving the way for transparency: How eHealth technology can change boundaries in healthcare Lund University].

Reed, J. E., Howe, C., Doyle, C., & Bell, D. (2019). Successful healthcare improvements from translating evidence in complex systems (SHIFT-Evidence): simple rules to guide practice and research. International journal for quality in health care, 31(3), 238-244.

Socialstyrelsen. (2021). E-hälsa och välfärdsteknik i kommunerna 2021. Uppföljning av den digitala utvecklingen i socialtjänsten och den kommunala hälso-och sjukvården.

von Gerich, H., Moen, H., Block, L. J., Chu, C. H., DeForest, H., Hobensack, M., Michalowski, M., Mitchell, J., Nibber, R., & Olalia, M. A. (2022). Artificial Intelligence-based technologies in nursing: A scoping literature review of the evidence. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 127, 104153.

BACKGROUND: Sick leave due to stress-related ill-health is increasing and is often caused by occupational imbalance. These types of issues tend to affect both the ability to work and cope with everyday life, as well as the overall experience of health, negatively. There is still little knowledge on how to prepare people and workplaces for the return-to-work process after participation in a work rehabilitation program due to stress and occupational ill-health. Therefore, this study aimed to describe what is needed to achieve a balanced everyday life that includes paid work as experienced by individuals who had participated in a ReDO® intervention due to occupational imbalance and ill-health. METHODS: The concluding notes from 54 informants' medical records were used for qualitative content analysis. The informants had participated in an occupational therapy group intervention to promote occupational health and regain full work capacity. RESULTS: The analysis resulted in one major theme and four categories describing how the informants perceive that they must take control of their everyday life as a whole. By doing so, they need to work with structurization and prioritization, social interaction, boundary setting, and occupational meaningfulness. CONCLUSION: The study indicates a highly relational process, where it is impossible to divide life into private and work, and presupposes balance in everyday life in multiple dimensions. Its contribution includes the formulation of perceived needs in the transition between intervention and return to work and could, through further research, be used to generate a more effective and sustainable return- and rehabilitation models. © 2023. The Author(s).