VID:Open
Not a member yet
4255 research outputs found
Sort by
Physical activity and sedentary time after lifestyle interventions at the Norwegian Healthy Life Centres
Get PDFThis is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativeco mmons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.Aims: This study evaluates long-term changes in physical activity and its associations with various predictors after a behavior change program at the Norwegian Healthy Life Centers.
Background: Physical activity is recommended and is part of public health strategies to prevent noncommunicable diseases.
Methods: This longitudinal cohort, based on a controlled randomized trial, studies a population of 116 Healthy Life Center participants in South-Western Norway who wore SenseWear Armbands to measure time spent in moderate to vigorous physical activity and sedentary time based on metabolic equivalents. The measurements were obtained at baseline, immediately post-intervention, and 24 months after baseline. Linear mixed model analyses were performed to assess predictors for change in physical activity and sedentary time.
Findings: High physical activity levels at baseline were maintained during the 24-month study period. Young, male participants with good self-rated health, utilizing local PA facilities were most active, and young participants utilizing local facilities were also less sedentary. The participants with higher levels of education were less active initially but caught up with the difference during follow-up. A high degree of controlled regulation, characterized by bad conscience and external pressure, predicted more sedentary behavior and a trend toward being less physically active. Autonomous motivation was associated with less time spent on sedentary behaviors. People with high self-efficacy for physical activity were more sedentary initially but showed a reduction in their sedentary behavior.
The study supports the importance of attending local training facilities and adopting motivation for behavioral change that is not based on guilt and external rewards. Interventions aimed at improving physical activity among people at risk for noncommunicable diseases benefit from habitual use of local training facilities, strengthening their self-perceived health and the development of internalized motivation. However, it has not been shown to mitigate social health disparities.publishedVersio
Occupational therapy students’ concepts of learning: cross-sectional and longitudinal associations with deep, strategic, and surface study strategies
No full textThis study aimed to gain knowledge about the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between learning concepts and approaches to studying among occupational therapy students. A repeated cross-sectional design was combined with a longitudinal study design. Self-report questionnaires assessed sociodemographic variables, learning concepts, and approaches to studying (deep/strategic/surface). Linear regression analyses (n ranging between 109 and 193 in the analyses) showed that higher transforming concept ratings were consistently associated with higher ratings on the deep study approach, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Higher reproducing concept ratings were positively associated with higher strategic approach ratings in the second and third study years. In view of the results, students’ understanding of what learning is impacts on their study attitudes and behaviors, which in turn is likely to influence learning outcomes and academic performance.publishedVersio
Examining the interplay between physical activity, problematic internet use and the negative emotional state of depression, anxiety and stress: insights from a moderated mediation path model in university students
Get PDFBackground: The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between Problematic Internet Use (PIU), emotional states of stress, anxiety and depression, and the practice of physical activity among Tunisian students.
Methods: Cross-sectional data were collected from 976 university students aged 20.76 ± 1.63 years (46.8% female). They filled out an online survey comprised of a socio-demographic questionnaire, the depression, anxiety and stress scale– 21 items (DASS-21), the international physical activity questionnaire (IPAQ) and the compulsive internet use scale (CIUS). Students were divided, based on their economic levels, into three groups: low (n = 256, 26.23%), medium (n = 523, 53.59%) and high (n = 197, 20.18%).
Results: Mediation analysis: Indirect effects of IPAQ and gender on DASS-21 were highlighted: β= -0.18 (p < 0.01) and β= -0.04, P < 0.01) respectively. In addition, a significant and negative effect of IPAQ on CIUS was demonstrated (β = -0.45, P < 0.01). In addition, the effect of CIUS on DASS-21 was significant (β = 0.39, P < 0.01). Also, the effect of gender on CIUS was significant (β=-0.10, P < 0.01) However, its effect on DASS-21 was not significant (β = 0.05, p = 0.078). The total effect of IPAQ on DASS21 was significant (β= -0.52, p < 0.01) but the effect of Gender on DASS-21 was not significant (β = 0.01, p = 0.817). Moderation analysis: the results showed a significant moderation effect of the interaction between IPAQ and Gender on CIUS (β = 0.07, p < 0.01). However, it was not significant between Gender and CIUS on DASS-21 (β = 0.09, p = 0.390) and between IPAQ and Gender on DASS21 (β = 0.01, p = 0.736) Also, the interaction between IPAQ and CIUS did not have a significant moderation effect on DASS-21 (β = 0.15, p = 0.115).
Conclusions: Findings suggest that relationships between PIU and negative emotional state of depression, anxiety and stress are mediated via physical exercise. These results underscore the importance of the physical activity factor in the studies analyzing longitudinal effects of PIU on mental health outcomes.publishedVersio
“That bastard chose me”: The use of metaphor in women’s cancer blogs
Get PDFMetaphors play a significant role in how cancer is experienced and discussed. This study delves into the utilization of metaphors by women bloggers grappling with colorectal and gynecological cancers. By focusing on cancer types less represented in mainstream media, we aim to shed light on cancer cultures associated with body areas often considered taboo. Our findings reveal that widely recognized expressions and stories about cancer, such as the metaphors of battle and narratives promoting optimism and heroism in the face of illness, are deeply ingrained. However, a notable discovery is the prevalence of personification alongside these conventional expressions. Personifying cancer endows it with human characteristics, providing an outlet for bloggers to express their fear and frustration, including articulating feelings of sadness and anger, diverging from narratives centered on heroism and positive thinking. Furthermore, our analysis reveals a significant emphasis on death, underscoring that despite advancements in treatment, bloggers still perceive cancer as highly lethal. Personification can serve both detrimental and therapeutic purposes for bloggers and for societal perceptions of cancer survivorship, both reinforcing and opposing dominant Western discourses surrounding the illness. These findings enrich our understanding of cognitive and cultural tools used to describe cancer within contemporary Western society.publishedVersio
Citizenship for persons with dementia living in nursing homes: Becoming and co-ownership in the mundane
Get PDFAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission.Background: In recent years, scholars of citizenship internationally have argued that current dominant medical and care-based understandings position people with dementia solely as in need of care while not sufficiently attending to the socio-political context influencing their lives. In Norway the last two dementia plans have promoted the participation and involvement of people living with dementia in a dementia-friendly society, as well as services built on theories of person-centred care. However, they scarcely address issues of citizenship or discrimination in the nursing home context. More than 30,000 people live long-term in nursing homes in Norway. International and national research suggests that people living with dementia in nursing homes may experience that their freedom, autonomy and agency are restricted and that they may be at risk of occupational deprivation.
Purpose of the study: This thesis explores what characterises citizenship practices for persons living with dementia in nursing homes. While many discussions of citizenship are of a theoretical or conceptual nature, this thesis explores the practices of citizenship in mundane aspects of life. The thesis aims to produce knowledge about how residents in nursing homes enact and express their citizenship in ordinary and everyday circumstances and explores the possible contributions of adding citizenship theories to the interpretive practices in nursing homes. To explore the concept and phenomenon of citizenship as mundane practices I use theories of occupation and narrativity to interpret the ways in which citizenship can be materialised in practice. In doing so, the thesis aims to provide knowledge of relevance for future developments in policy and professional practices addressing issues of citizenship in this context.
Methods: Citizenship is explored as a phenomenon emerging relationally and in an embodied way in ordinary life situations. Using an ethnographic design fieldwork was conducted in two nursing homes in the south-west region of Norway. The primary method of gathering data was participant observation. In addition, individual interviews and group interviews were conducted with staff and support staff. Participant observation focused on common areas in the nursing homes and provided a strategy for including residents’ perspectives in a way that did not rely on coherent language or abstract thought, recognising that both actions and verbal expressions are narrative in nature. Narrative analysis was performed, which involved constructing stories of occupational and social engagement in the nursing homes that were then interpreted through theories of citizenship, occupation and narrativity. The study was assessed by the Norwegian Regional Ethics Committee and the Norwegian Centre for Research Data before commencing.
Results: The first article of the thesis is a literature review exploring how citizenship for persons with dementia living in nursing homes is conceptualised and described in the research literature. The article concludes that citizenship practices may be under pressure from certain nursing home structures and calls for more research exploring citizenship that encapsulates both residents’ apparent needs and their abilities as citizens. The second article explores how people living with dementia in nursing homes express and enact their everyday citizenship. We suggest that residents can express their citizenship through the phenomenon of becoming, implying a continued opportunity for development and growth, in line with own occupational potential in ordinary life situations. However, a citizenship of becoming emerges in vulnerable moments and presupposes that institutional perceptions of 4 activities as something offered need to be broadened to include supporting residents’ natural desires to do within the mundane. The third article explores the potentially transformative characteristics of a citizenship lens. Constructed narratives of mundane social and occupational situations in the nursing homes are interpreted in terms of an activistic lens of citizenship, acknowledging that residents can communicate desires and resistance towards environments that constrain citizenship opportunities. The findings shed light on a phenomenon of co-ownership between residents and staff that requires a professional competence in actively interpreting residents as intentional.
Discussion and implications: The discussion sheds light on the social phenomena of becoming and co-ownership, as well as the inclusive and exclusive tensions inherent to a citizenship lens. It is argued that the characteristics of the occupational context mean going beyond the right for, or provision of, occupational engagement to support residents’ opportunities to act in line with own occupational potential. This requires paying attention to residents’ unique ways of expressing desires and capabilities and creating occupational contexts of familiarity supporting residents’ opportunities to act. Further, it is discussed that interpretive practices in nursing homes can include or exclude residents from access to participation and thus opportunities to practice citizenship. It is argued that group-based interpretations of persons with dementia, based on a lens of pathology, may limit residents’ opportunities for citizenship. Applying a lens of pathology can lead us to interpret behaviour as expressing dementia, e.g., viewing withdrawal or passivity as symptoms (apathy) and thus as normal or expected. A difference between recognising residents’ rights as citizens to quality services and recognising their continuous role of responsibility towards their community is discussed, highlighting the recognition of their medical needs, their need for care and safety, and their rights and capabilities as citizens. The discussion points to three possible implications of citizenship for regulations in the field, suggesting increased attention towards issues of agency, interpretive practices and discrimination in future dementia policy. Conclusion: This study contributes to knowledge of the practices and characteristics of citizenship in the more advanced stages of dementia in the long-term care context. It contributes to increased knowledge about the occupational context of citizenship, shedding light on citizenship as vulnerable practices enacted within mundane aspects of nursing home everyday life. Theories of citizenship were found to provide a perspective in which to question current understandings and practices, challenging pathologising views and logics underlining nursing home care. This thesis adds to our knowledge of citizenship by bringing forward the phenomena of becoming and co-ownership. Co-ownership is suggested as an active professional and institutional responsibility to ensure that nursing homes are communities where residents are interpreted as intentional and capable, as well as supported to share responsibilities and spaces and influence occupational opportunities. Becoming is seen as the personal dimension of development and growth, in which people with dementia act in line with own occupational potential. In the everyday lives of people living with dementia in the nursing homes, becoming was found to emerge in vulnerable and fleeting moments, thus needing continuous recognition and support to be upheld. Through the work on this thesis, citizenship emerges as something more than provision of rights or occupational opportunities, but as the recognition and support of inherent and naturally occurring expressions of agency in the mundane.
Paper I: Sund, M., Hanisch, H., & Fjetland, K. J. (2022). Citizenship for persons with dementia in nursing homes: A literature review. In K. J. Fjetland, A. Gjermestad, & I. M. Lid (Eds.), Lived citizenship for persons in vulnerable life situations: Theories and practices (pp. 29–45). Scandinavian University Press. https://doi.org/10.18261/9788215053790-2022-02
Paper II: Sund, M., Jaeger Fjetland, K., & Hanisch, H. (2023). Within moments of becoming – Everyday citizenship in nursing homes. Scandinavian Journal of Occupational Therapy, 30(2), 239–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/11038128.2022.2085621
Paper III: Sund, M., Hanisch, H., & Fjetland, K. J. (2023). Activistic citizenship in nursing homes: Coownership in the mundane. Dementia, 22(3), 594–609. https://doi.org/10.1177/14713012231155307publishedVersio
Adult maltese women’s understanding of how childhood domestic volence has impacted their relationships with their parents and siblings: A grounded theory study
Get PDFMost of the literature that has looked at children’s relationships with their parents in the domestic violence context has focused solely on the children’s relationship with one parent or is studied from the perspective of one parent, usually the mother. Sibling relationships in the same context are also under-studied. This paper explores in more detail the complexity of children’s relationships with their mothers, fathers, and siblings over time from the perspective of adult women and survivors of childhood domestic violence.
Methods: A grounded theory methodology was used to analyse the interviews with 15 women aged twenty to forty-three years of age living in Malta.
Results: the analysis showed that the domestic violence context remains significant in these important relationships for these women. The relationship with the father remains strongly influenced by the dynamics of fear, love, and retaliation, with cycles of cut-off and connection from the adult daughter’s end. The relationship with the mother is complicated feelings of love that are seen as having been limited and complicated by betrayal if there was abuse from the mother. Similarly, for the siblings, the roles of the early family of origin remain persistent and significant. However, in some of these relationships, there has been transformation, reconciliation, and forgiveness. The article offers implications for therapeutic practice for dealing with the complexity of these relationships and ideas for future research.publishedVersio
Prevalence of suicide attempt and associations with deliberate self-harm, mental health problems, drug misuse and traumatic experiences - a cross sectional survey of the Norwegian population
Get PDFBackground: Monitoring self-reported suicide attempts (SA) with nationally representative surveys is important to initiate suicide prevention strategies. The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of SA and compare deliberate self-harm, (DSH), mental health, drug misuse and traumas between SA and non-suicide attempters (NSA).
Methods: In this cross-sectional survey of a representative sample (N=1757) of the Norwegian population, we compared people with self-reported SA (n=54) to NSA (n=1703) regarding sociodemographic data, mental health problems, drug misuse and exposure to trauma.
Results: The prevalence of SA was 3.1 %. There was a higher proportion of welfare recipients and more deliberate selfharm, mental health problems, drug misuse and traumas in the SA group compared to NSA.
Conclusion: This national study confrms the association between suicide attempt and deliberate self-harm, mental health problems, drug misuse and traumas.publishedVersio
Support in bereavement processes in cases of suicide or substance-related death in childhood: a systematic review
Get PDFExposure to parental suicide or substance-related death can be a risk factor for unwanted developmental trajectories. The stigma and taboo that often follow a death subject to being morally sanctioned in society (‘special deaths’) pose an extra challenge for the surviving child and family. The support of informal and formal networks is an important factor in adaptive coping; however, when the death is not socially recognised, the child’s access to support can be limited. This article presents the results of a systematic literature review seeking to explore children’s access to support when parentally bereaved as the result of suicide or a substance-related death. All six studies included address access to support after a suicide-related death. All studies focus on how children can be supported by loss-oriented activities, particularly how to facilitate open communication between the child and their surroundings. Based on this review, the authors recommend developing research on: 1) support for child survivors in the aftermath of substance-related death, 2), children’s everyday grieving practices, including their access to support for restoration-oriented activities, 3) the effects of social support on mental health outcomes, and 4) to developing research designs that allow for disturbing the phenomena of stigma production.publishedVersio
Health professionals’ counselling on the use of infant formula: A scoping review
Get PDFVitenskapelig oversiktsartikkel/reviewObjective: Many parents experience lack of support and access to resources on how to prepare, handle, and provide formula milk to their infants. The purpose of this scoping review was to map and describe key information in existing research about how health-care professionals receive information and how they inform and counsel parents about formula milk.
Design: A scoping review fulfilling the PRISMA-ScR checklist criteria used systematic searches targeting the study objective in the databases Embase, MEDLINE, and CINAHL on February 8th and 9th, 2022.Results: Six studies with 959 participants in total were included. The research designs were focus group studies with and without combining individual interviews, an individual interview study, a study consisting of individual interviews and ethnographic observations, a survey, and a two-phase study consisting of a qualitative interview and a quantitative survey. Findings indicate lack of evidence-based information pro-vided about infant formula by health care professionals when they counsel parents on formula feeding.
Conclusions: Few studies focus on how healthcare professionals inform and counsel parents about formula milk. Health authorities should provide more evidence-based information to make formula feeding more feasible. Due to conflicting and omitted information, mothers often receive poor counselling on formula feeding.publishedVersio
Recognizing students with intellectual disabilities in higher education
Get PDFAccording to Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), state parties recognize the right of persons with disabilities to education. In this paper we focus on access to higher education for persons with intellectual disabilities and the recognition or non-recognition of these persons as students and learners. The year 2024 marks 30 years since the Salamanca Statement was adopted, and the system of inclusive education still faces many challenges. One challenge is that persons with intellectual disabilities have not yet been included in higher education, although they are included in primary and secondary education as students in special needs education. The aim of this article is to identify and discuss possibilities and obstacles that may be arise when granting persons with intellectual disabilities participation in higher education. Based on experiences from a single case study – a pilot project developing a higher education programme in human rights for students with intellectual disabilities – we examine possibilities and obstacles at the institutional level. Using Honneth’s relational theory of recognition, we analyse the results with a focus on what can be learned from this project in regard to welcoming students with intellectual disabilities in higher education.publishedVersio