Nordic Journal of Nursing Research

Appropriate patient education enables patients to participate in their own care. It is vital that patients suffering from congestive heart failure (CHF) are involved in their care, because self care is of great importance to controll the symtoms. The aim of this article is to elucidate factors that facilitate respectively hinder a group of patients with CHF to use information. A qualitative approach was used in the study analysing two focus group interviews. The results revealed not only a daily-life-perspective of CHF, but also facilitating factors to use information and problems in the information process. A dialogue between the care-giver and the care-taker is crucial for patients to profit by information and such a dialogue was not always established. When patients with the same disease came together in a group an interaction was initiated. This group interaction implied advantages both in terms of pedagogy and social support. The problems in the information process were mainly deficiencies in the communication and in the continuity of the process. A group format was found as a possible alternative for patient education in CHF, worth testing in the clinical practise.

The nursing students' knowledge comes from both theoretical and practical education. They have different kinds of support in these knowledge domains. This study's aim was to describe the nursing students'opinions concerning their education which consists of psychological, social, and cultural elements, also their attitudes toward different knowledge domains and prospective professional roles. Seventy-seven students participated in the study, a short time before their graduation in Sweden. They answered a questionnaire based on close-ended and open-ended questions. The study reveals that there is still a gap between the theoretical and practical education. The supervisor in health care seems to be most important for the students learning in the practical education while the teacher's role is not so clear. The usefulness of the literature was greater in the theoretical education than in the practical. The students'opinions of the literature were similar to their opinions about the knowledge domains. Subjects from the medical and natural sciences as well as nursing, ethics and psychology were most important. Subjects such as research methods, pedagogy, sociology, and management were of less importance. The preparation given education for the professional roles in the nursing was better suited for those in nursing than were the other special roles, such as health-information, counselling, and work management. These findings indicate that the students did not acquire a holistic view of their learning for nursing. The results further also show that most of the students planned to work in hospital and especially in medical care. Few planned to work with the elderly or in outpatient care. The study particularly demonstrates the need for both the teachers and the supervisors to be more conscious about the organisation and content of the nursing education with due consideration given to the ongoing changes in the society.

Research into working life in Finland shows how great changes in society have increased the empoloyees'psychological as well as physiological working load. This study deals with change processes in occupational health and their influence on the professionals' approach to counselling and to their own occupatinal roles. In the last few years demands have been made for a more humanistic view of the human being in health education. Simultaneously there has been a need to emphasize the communication-process between the professionals and the client and to analyze how the roles of the professionals influence the interaction with the client. The main purpose of this study is to clarify how the occupational health professionals view the changes in the occupational health activity, to study how professionals in different occupational groups view their roles in counselling and how the roles relate to the encounter with the client. In this study a qualitative and naturalistic approach was used in order to understand how nine occupational health (oh)- nurses and four oh- physicians, working in three different units, conceptualize changes in the activity, their own roles and their relation to the client. Data collection was based on open-ended interviews. The data from the interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analyses. The results show how the oh-nurses and physicians consider changes in the activity, how the economic depression in society has influenced the problems in oh-activity. The oh-nurses focus on questions relating to wokers' increased mental stress, while physicians emphasize the need to focus on the relationship between different levels within the organisation. The oh-nurses and physicians call attention to different working-methods in counselling. They take either an active, partly active or passive role in order to get information of the clients' expectations. The results show a task-oriented and a socio-emotional view and they also show a relationship between the consideration of the role and the interaction with the client. In conclusion The study indicates a relationship between a patient-centered encounter, equal interaction and the clients' ability to take responsibility for their own health.

The present paper focuses on the competence for the ideal nurse teacher. Evaluation of the teacher is necessary to ensure the quality in nursing education. The paper is based on a pilot study performed to investigate how nurse students in Norway evaluate requirement for the competent teacher and investigate if the teachers met these requirements. The questionnaire The Ideal Nurse Teacher Tool developed by Leino-Kilpi et al, was used in the present evaluation. Results showed that the student meant that the teachers' nursing competence was most important, the least important requirement was the teacher's relationship with the student. The ideal teacher was from the students' point of view a teacher who integrates theory and practice, teaches clearly, is fair in her judgement, inspires the student and admit her own mistakes.

Tutoring in nursing education using two-way videotechnology The author of the paper have substantial experience from lecturing and tutoring in various professions from the foundation level up to post-educational programs in addition to educational programs for nurses. In today's nursing education, placement (practice) has become a growing bottleneck. The students often have to travel a long distance from the college of education in order to obtain the practical study the national framework requires. This means that students and tutors often travel a long distance which is expensive. This has in turn led to a need for trying out alternative possibilities for parts of the tutoring. The two-way video sessions have been with two participants utilizing various transmissions. The method demands educational and especially didactical knowledge in order to ensure quality in how the technology is applied, and furthermore, a basic understanding of technical possibilities and limitations. The dialogue is central in tutoring, and the use of two-way videotechnology is highly dependent on the technology due to the complex nature of the communication. This is essential in order to ensure that as much as possible of the whole spectrum of perception is activated. The main objective was to obtain the tutoring using two-way videotechnolgy being as close as possible to the «normal» tutoring situation. We have found that the planning phase is particularly important when two-way videotechnology is used. Tutoring with the use of two-way videotechnology implies that both the tutor and the students become acquainted with the technology in advance and learn to know the possibilities and limitations involved. Experiences showed that when the technical equipment functions as intended, the importance of it tends to more or less «disappear», and the content of the tutoring and/or teaching becomes the central issue, similar to when everybody is sitting in the same room. Our assumption is that the content of the tutoring and the educational objective should determine the choices and employment of the technical equipment, the location, the breadth of the tape etc. and not vice versa. Through the last years a considerable amount of experience has been collected from various projects, I would now like to share this information with other people.

This article is based on a study of the nursing-students experience from learning by doing situations, to determine what the conditions for good experience-based learning situations are. The main method in this study is the qualitative research-interview based on my participatory observation of four students in their practice. In addition I collected stories from learning situations, written by students. In the analysis of my material, two theorists are of major importance; the Sweedish philosopher Bengt Molander and the Norwegian nurse and pedagogue Kristin Heggen. Both have a collectivistic view of knowledge. They consider knowledge not to be something that we posess individually, but something we own together with others. The students presented seven key subjects related to learning by doing. They stressed the environment in the ward as beeing of paramount importance for their learning. Further they emphasized their own effort, and the importance of being emotionally involved. The contact-nurse had great influence on their learning, related to behaviour and the way she/he guided the students. The relation between the role as a student and the role as a nurse also appears to be crucial in addition to how the execution of power takes place between the two parties. The last two subjects addresses signs/characteritics of the situations in which the students are involved, and pedagogic principles they consider to be important for the learning-process. In this article three of the subjects are elaborated: the environment in the ward, the contact-nurse and the relation between the role of the nurse and the role of the student.

In this article the concept «mental suffering» is discussed as a possible anomaly from the point of view of nursing science. Based upon a review of central concepts common to nursing science the concept «suffering» is elucidated with regard to the concept's content, source, character and power. «Mental suffering» has been predominately used as a concept connected to disease. In such a context the concept may be regarded as reductionistic since «suffering» is perceived to be a comprehensive concept having spiritual, cultural, psychological, social and physical dimensions. It may seem unnecessary, and frankly even misleading, to couple the concepts «mental» and «suffering» since suffering, in itself, is predominately mental. The Health Service must surely meet suffering human beings by focusing on the uniqueness of each individual and not just on the diagnosis of the person involved.

The origin of this article is an evaluation study completed in the fall of 1997. The study was designed for the purpose of process evaluation of a project aimed at offering health services in a daytime hospice to patients ill with cancer, living at home. The intent of the article is to present an overview and critique of the methods utilized in the evaluation study. Particularly will Focus Group Interviews as methods for data collection be addressed in the article. The goal is to share experience, thus drawing other researchers' attention to designs and methods that may produce effective, complete, valid and reliable sets of data as basis for analysis in evaluation. The conclusion of the critique stresses the researcher's responsibility for using objectives and goals of the study as primary guide for developing the research protocols. Regardless of choice the criteria recommended for using a specific method must be overheld. In case of the study, violation of recommended use of Focus Group Interview as method failed to disclose valid and reliable data aimed at exploring and describing activities characterizing processes within a collaborative team of health professionals in the project.