Background: The growing presence of digital technologies in health care requires the health workforce to have proficiency in subjects such as informatics. This has implications in the education of nursing students, as their preparedness to use these technologies in clinical situations is something that course administrators need to consider. Thus, students' attitudes toward technology could be investigated to assess their needs regarding this proficiency. Objective: This study aims to investigate attitudes (enthusiasm and anxiety) toward technology among nursing students and to identify factors associated with those attitudes. Methods: Nursing students at 2 universities in Sweden and 1 university in Poland were invited to answer a questionnaire. Data about attitudes (anxiety and enthusiasm) toward technology, eHealth literacy, electronic device skills, and frequency of using electronic devices and sociodemographic data were collected. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the data. The Spearman rank correlation coefficient and Mann -Whitney U test were used for statistical inferences. Results: In total, 646 students answered the questionnaire-342 (52.9%) from the Swedish sites and 304 (47.1%) from the Polish site. It was observed that the students' technology enthusiasm (techEnthusiasm) was on the higher end of the Technophilia instrument (score range 1-5): 3.83 (SD 0.90), 3.62 (SD 0.94), and 4.04 (SD 0.78) for the whole sample, Swedish students, and Polish students, respectively. Technology anxiety (techAnxiety) was on the midrange of the Technophilia instrument: 2.48 (SD 0.96), 2.37 (SD 1), and 2.60 (SD 0.89) for the whole sample, Swedish students, and Polish students, respectively. Regarding techEnthusiasm among the nursing students, a negative correlation with age was found for the Swedish sample ( P <.001; rho (Swedish) =- 0 . 201 ) who were generally older than the Polish sample, and positive correlations with the eHealth Literacy Scale score ( P <.001; rho (all) =0.265; rho (Swedish) = 0 . 190 ; rho (Polish) = 0 . 352 ) and with the perceived skill in using computer devices ( P <.001; rho (all) =0.360; rho (Swedish) = 0 . 341 ; rho (Polish) =0.309) were found for the Swedish, Polish, and total samples. Regarding techAnxiety among the nursing students, a positive correlation with age was found in the Swedish sample ( P <.001; rho (Swedish) =0.184), and negative correlations with eHealth Literacy Scale score ( P <.001; rho (all) =-0.196; rho (Swedish) =- 0 . 262 ; rho (Polish) =- 0 . 133 ) and with the perceived skill in using computer devices ( P <.001; rho (all) =-0.209; rho (Swedish )=- 0 . 347 ; rho (Polish) =- 0 . 134 ) were found for the Swedish, Polish, and total samples and with the semester only for the Swedish sample ( P <.001; rho (Swedish) =-0.124). Gender differences were found regarding techAnxiety in the Swedish sample, with women exhibiting a higher mean score than men (2.451, SD 1.014 and 1.987, SD 0.854, respectively). Conclusions: This study highlights nursing students' techEnthusiasm and techAnxiety, emphasizing correlations with various factors. With health care's increasing reliance on technology, integrating health technology-related topics into education is crucial for future professionals to address health care challenges effectively.

Purpose: As the group of technology-dependent children with long-term tracheostomy continues to expand, we aimed to explore parents' lived experience of everyday life with a child dependent on long-term tracheostomy.

Materials and methods: Six parents of four children were interviewed and the transcripts analyzed using Giorgi's descriptive phenomenology.

Results: All aspects of everyday life, parent-child interaction, and interaction with the surrounding outside world were affected by technology dependency. Parents played an active role by acting both as a protective shield between the outside world and the child and as an enabling bridge to help the child interact with the outside world. The active and involved role of parents is interwoven in all aspects, levels, and directions of interaction and everyday life. The lived experiences can be described in four themes: caution and risk awareness due to technology, meeting the demands of technology dependence, strained and constrained by technology dependence, and conflicted feelings about technology dependence.

Conclusions: Long-term tracheostomy and technology-dependency affect and shape everyday life. Practical implications from the study suggest that re-design and co-design between all stakeholders involved are needed to support parental well-being, coping and enhance patient safety for this growing population and their parents.

Introduction: Substance withdrawal is one of the most common advert events in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), as the administration of potent opiates and sedative drugs is frequently performed several times each day.

Objectives: The present study explored the challenges in nursing care of children with substance withdrawal syndrome inthe PICU.

Method: The study has an explorative and descriptive semi-structured qualitative interview design, with a strategic selection of informants. It was conducted at one out of three pediatric intensive care units in Sweden.

Results: Three different main themes were identified describing the different challenges regarding withdrawal symptoms: monitor the child’s interest, work with structured support, and understand the observation.

Conclusions: There is a discrepancy between the medical perspective and the nursing care perspective regarding children in PICU suffering from withdrawal syndrome. The lack of joint guidelines, language, and nursing diagnoses may lead to subjective evaluations and increase suffering for these children.

Background: The organ donor process is challenging, not at least for intensive care nurses. The situation changes radically, from intensively working to save the patient’s life to instead caring for the donor patient’s organs so that those, in turn, can save another patient’s life. The donation process challenges nurses’ view on what dignified caring at end-of-life entails. The inner core of caring comprises love, mercy and compassion. Dignified caring is related to treating the patient as a unique human being and respecting human value, rooted in the theory of caritative caring that is the framework for this study.   

Aim: The aim was to illuminate intensive care nurses’ experiences of caring during the organ donor process, from a caring science perspective.

Methodology: A descriptive research design including inductive qualitative content analysis of interviews with twelve intensive care nurses in Sweden about their experiences of caring during the donor process.

Results: The theme The complexity of caring during the organ donor process with two categories and five subcategories was generated. Intensive care nurses experienced caring during the donor process as being complex in relation to the potential donor patient and patient’s family as well as communication, teamwork and organization. Caring affects not only the patient and families, but also the nurses and receivers of the donated organs. Intensive care nurses perceive the other’s life situation as if it were their own and recognize the importance of shared humanity.

Introduction: Nursing staff have faced various challenges during the global pandemic of COVID-19 such as nursing shortages. The great number of COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization placed heavy demands on healthcare staff to maintain patient safety and to work according to constantly changing guidelines to prevent the spread of infection.

Objective: The objective was to describe nurses’ experiences of caring for patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 in the initial phase of the pandemic.

Methods: The study has a qualitative design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven nurses in primary care and hospital care during the initial stage of the pandemic. Qualitative content analysis with an inductive approach was used.

Results: The nurses expressed that the working routines changed very quickly at the onset of the pandemic. A triage system was implemented to care for patients with symptoms of COVID-19 to prevent transmission between patients. A major change was the constant use of personal protective equipment in patient care. The nurses also experienced a sense of inadequacy regarding the care of the patients and became emotionally affected and exhausted.

Conclusion: The nurses experienced that many patients worsened clinically, leading to exhausting and difficult nursing care situations. They also experienced increasing responsibility since new protective equipment and procedures needed to be quickly implemented according to frequently changing recommendations, causing the nurses to feel uncertain about how to maintain patient safety. Support from colleagues was crucial to cope throughout the initial stage of the pandemic.

Introduction: Home mechanical ventilation is an established method to support children suffering from chronic respiratory insufficiency, still more research is needed regarding mechanically ventilated children’s and adolescents’ quality of life (QoL). Therefore, the aim of this scoping review was to explore research regarding QoL and lived experience of children and adolescents with home mechanical ventilation. 

Methods: A scoping review with systematic searches for research studies published between year 2000–2020 was performed in Cinahl, Medline, and PubMed. Studies that met the inclusion criteria were quality assessed and a thematic analysis was performed.

Results: In total, ten articles were quality assessed and included in the results. Four themes emerged: Children’s self-reported QoL, Parents’ perception and parent-proxy report, Differences between the child’s and parent’s perception, and challenges in daily life. Children with home mechanical ventilation reported a lower QoL than healthy children and children with other chronic diseases. Generally, parents rate their child’s QoL lower than the children themselves.

Conclusion: This is the first literature review focusing on HMV in the paediatric population. It is clear that HMV does not only affect the treated child or adolescent but also the whole family. It is important to regularly measure and evaluate QoL in children and adolescents with

Despite the availability of free and anonymous HIV testing almost 60% of Swedish patients are diagnosed late. Identifying predictors of different types of barriers could inform policy makers and health care of interventions to increase testing where needed. This cross-sectional study aimed to describe and analyze barriers to HIV testing as reported by Swedish patients newly diagnosed with HIV infection. N = 285 patients completed the 18-item Barriers to HIV Testing Scale - Karolinska Version. Descriptive analysis and logistic regressions were performed to assess the prevalence of barriers and to identify predictors for the different investigated barriers. Barriers to testing were reported by 60%. Approximately 67% of patients originating from Sweden, 50% from Sub-Saharan Africa and 75% from Eastern European/East Asian countries reported barriers. Patients who were younger and patients who self-initiated HIV testing, had greater odds of reporting a barrier than older individuals and those who were offered a test through screening or by a healthcare professional. To counteract barriers that still exist on an individual level, healthcare-initiated HIV testing could be offered more broadly and information about risks for transmission and effectiveness of HIV treatment still needs to be disseminated among both people born in Sweden and different migrant groups.

Background: Research show that fibromyalgia has low credibility in healthcare, leading to poor treatment, lack of knowledge and disinterest. Therefore, people with fibromyalgia feel frustration, fear, anxiety and disappointment.

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of people with fibromyalgia in their encounters with healthcare personnel in Sweden.

Method: A cross-sectional design, where 409 people with fibromyalgia answered an anonymous online patient-reported experience measure, developed specific for the study, with six closed questions and one open-ended question. Descriptive statistics were analysed by response frequencies. Correlation analysis were performed between demographic and clinical variables with the answers from the closed questions. Free-text answers were analysed with content analysis.

Results: A third experienced the treatment as bad (34%) and that they were not being taken seriously (30.5%). Almost half (47%) always or mostly felt fear of seeking healthcare related to fibromyalgia and that the health care personnel did not understand their diagnosis (46%). The majority (54%) experienced that the health care personnel did not understand how fibromyalgia affected them or how they could help them. The findings were confirmed in the free-text answers that were categorized into: Scepticism and disregard, Ignorance and disinterest and Professionalism and empathy. There were positive significant correlations between age and five of the questions (ρ = .105–.181, p < .05–p < .01), indicating that lower age is correlated with a worse experience. Furthermore, the duration of fibromyalgia showed a significant correlation with feeling afraid of seeking healthcare because of fibromyalgia (ρ = .144, p < .01), the shorter duration, the greater was the fear of seeking healthcare.

Conclusion: As a third of patients with fibromyalgia had bad experiences with healthcare, especially younger patients, knowledge about fibromyalgia needs to be increased and the patients should be taken seriously and treated respectfully, as well as given adequate support.

Background: Adolescent pregnancy is a global health problem. In Uganda, the rate of teenage pregnancies is approximately 25% and these are associated with both poor maternal- and perinatal health outcome.

Objective: This qualitative case study aimed to examine health workers’ experiences of promoting sustainable health and well-being for pregnant adolescent girls in Uganda.

Method: A qualitative study design was used. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews of four health workers working for a Non-Government Organization (NGO) based in Uganda. Data was inductively analyzed by content analysis.

Result: Three categories emerged: social structure, organization’s work – rehabilitation and therapy, and outcome. Healthcare workers worked with health promotion using a person-centered approach, emphasizing therapies and empowerment strategies and an overall faith-based approach. Furthermore, the result showed that girls were abandoned by their families when entering the center, but with help from the NGO they increased their understanding of the girls situation, due to resettlement of plan and follow up made by the health workers.

Conclusion: Health workers can promote health and well-being among pregnant adolescent by applying person-centered care, including therapies and empowerment strategies by a faith-based approach. Social structures and families should be encouraged to provide support to pregnant adolescent girls.