Background: An individual with SB needs to deal with long standing illnesses and is often viewed as having a disability that needs to be compensated for. This medical condition is an example of malfunction of the body, though congenital, and could be seen as an outside-perspective to the individual human being. It is important that the required medical treatment is offered to an individual with SB, but such medical treatment alone would not encompass the full health spectrum for an individual in this specific situation. A question to be raised is how this specific group of individuals experience health.

Aim: To describe the experience of daily life for young adults with SB through a theoretical lens of health.

Method: This qualitative study was conducted using a reflective lifeworld approach with an interpretive part. In the lifeworld theory it is understood that all our doings, feelings and thoughts are experienced through the lifeworld. The interview questions were open and non-standardised.

Findings: The main theme was formulated as The contradictory path towards well-being in daily life, and was constructed on the sub-themes: Not understanding and taking responsibility for the lower body, Having people standing behind me—not being allowed to grow up myself, Compared to people like me, I usually do well, I thought it would work out by itself, and A lack of structure in daily life.

Conclusion: The study indicates that young adults with SB have a diminished health and well-being and that they have a contradictory path to travel towards independency which is of great concern for this group of individuals. Differences in views of independence constitute a problem and it is important for health care providers to be aware of the individuals’ perspective on independence. This notion is something that needs to be taken into account when designing support programs for these individuals.

Background: Patients and clinicians report pain and fatigue as key outcome measures in rheumatoid arthritis. Fatigue and pain are a major concern to patients. Aim: The objective of this study was to examine fatigue and pain in adult patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and to investigate the association between pain and fatigue with body awareness, demographic, disease-related, emotional and psychosocial factors. Method: Data were collected from a sample of patients with RA (n= 120) recruited from a Rheumatology clinic in a large university hospital in Stockholm, Sweden. Eligible for inclusion were patients between 20 -80 years of age and with a confirmed diagnosis of RA. Fatigue was measured using the Multidimensional Assessment of Fatigue (MAF) scale, while the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) was used to assess components of pain. A multiple stepwise regression analysis was performed to evaluate factors related to fatigue and pain. In the first step a univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used for all relevant independent factors. In the next step backwards stepwise regression was applied. Result: Fatigue was significantly associated with the Disease Activity Score 28-joints (DAS 28) (p = 0.049), the Body Awareness Questionnaire (BAQ) (p = 0.006), the Positive Affect (PA) scale (p = 0.008) and no smoking (p = 0.021). Pain was significantly associated with the EuroQol EQ-5D (p = 0.008) and the DAS 28 (p = 0.001). The adjusted R-square was 28.6% for fatigue and 50.0% for pain. Conclusion: This study clearly demonstrates that fatigue and pain in patients with RA appear to be associated with disease-related factors. Furthermore, fatigue was related to body awareness and emotional factors, and pain was related to health related quality of life.