Practitioners’ use of shared concepts in anthroposophic pain rehabilitation

Relational vulnerability in motherhood-an existential perspective on pain and exhaustion among women

Introduction

Stress-related ill-health like pain and exhaustion are demanding public health problems in Europe. In Sweden, women are particularly at risk to develop stress-related ill-health during a period in life that coincides with child-rearing years. When entering motherhood, Swedish women's sick leave substantially increases. Yet, motherhood is rarely acknowledged in clinical encounters concerning pain and exhaustion although women suffer from these ailments more often than men. To incorporate motherhood as an existential dimension of health in the care of women living with pain and exhaustion might alleviate women's suffering. But knowledge on women's experiences of motherhood and health is scarce. Therefore, the aim of the study is to reach a deeper understanding of how women suffering from long-lasting pain and exhaustion experience their health in relation to motherhood.

Methods

Ricoeur's interpretation theory has been applied to analyze 27 phenomenological interviews with 14 mothers suffering from long-lasting pain and exhaustion.

Results

These women's experiences shed light on how closely motherhood is interwoven with the experience of their health and suffering: The women's suffering seems to be rooted in a relational vulnerability that has been uncovered during motherhood. Further, the women suffer from a burden of difficult life experiences and inner conflicts. Reconciliation with life is possible when women find an existential shelter, which offers ways to relate to their suffering making the own suffering more bearable.

Interprofessional education in nursing: The impact of collaboration between physical and mental health care professionals

Objectives

Interprofessional collaboration in the training of nursing and psychology students helps provide students of both disciplines with the ability and competences they need to best attend to their patients. This study implemented and analyzed a method for developing the competences of each discipline in a scenario of joint clinical simulation that incorporates mental and physical health simultaneously, and measured the caring ability of the participating students.

Methods

Participants took a self-applied survey measuring their own caring ability. After, a clinical simulation was performed where nursing students performed clinical interviews on psychology students, who acted as standardized patients. Caring abilities were measured in the nursing students, and the psychology students implemented an intervention service measuring caring ability and brief - debrief simulation by coaching to nursing students.

Results

The results indicated that the self-applied questionnaire of caring ability resulted in scores significantly higher than what was measured by observers.

Conclusions

The results contribute to the development of protocols, training and collaborative work practices in interprofessional education, which allow the scaling of these competences.

Exploring Sick Leave in Integrative Care-Retrospective Observations and Future Study Recommendations

OBJECTIVES

To describe and contrast the prevalence and trends of sick leave in patients with pain or stress disorders referred to inpatient care that integrates conventional and complementary therapies, that is, integrative care (IC).

METHODS

County council and social insurance data were used to retrospectively observe cross-sectional sick leave prevalence at four time points: 1 year before the first registered inpatient visit with the target diagnosis, after referral at index, and at 1 and 2 years after index. To contrast the IC findings, observations of patients with similar background characteristics referred to conventional care (CC) were used.

RESULTS

The sick leave prevalence of IC pain patients and IC stress patients increased from the preceding year to peak at index, where after it decreased back toward preindex levels over 2 years. Overall sick leave prevalence was higher in IC than in CC, where analogous but lower prevalence trends of sick leave changes were observed.

CONCLUSIONS

Observed sick leave prevalences, which were higher in IC than in CC, gradually decreased over time following IC or CC referral. While natural recovery or other reasons for change of sick leave cannot be excluded, future prospective and randomized clinical trials are recommended.

Existential Meaning of Patients with Chronic Facial Pain

Coping strategies are necessary to deal with pain, one of the most disabling conditions. Treatments are often refractory, and the elaboration of existential meaning is necessary to live with residual pain. The objective of this study was to discuss the relevance of the meaning of life in coping with refractory chronic neuropathic facial pain according to singular cases. Each patient is unique and needs a singular approach to understand and treat the pain phenomenon. Self-transcendence, existential issues and philosophical values are central concepts to assess chronic conditions and should be highlighted in medical practice these days.