Understandings of participation in daily activity services among people with intellectual disabilities: A pedagogical sociocultural perspective

This study sought to explore different understandings of participation in daily activity services among people with intellectual disabilities. Using a pedagogical sociocultural perspective, the research focused on individuals' perspectives and understandings as well as their account of social interaction, working and learning. In all, 17 people working in daily activity services were interviewed once, and, of these, 14 were interviewed a second time. Using qualitative content analysis, two themes and three categories were singled out. The results show that participation can be understood in two major ways: social interaction and performing work tasks.

"They can do whatever they want": Meanings of receiving psychiatric care based on a common staff approach

This study deepens our understanding of how patients, when cared for in a psychiatric ward, experience situations that involve being handled according to a common staff approach. Interviews with nine former psychiatric in-patients were analyzed using a phenomenological-hermeneutic method to illuminate the lived experience of receiving care based on a common staff approach. The results revealed several meanings: discovering that you are as subjected to a common staff approach, becoming aware that no one cares, becoming aware that your freedom is restricted, being afflicted, becoming aware that a common staff approach is not applied by all staff, and feeling safe because someone else is responsible. The comprehensive understanding was that the patient's understanding of being cared for according to a common staff approach was to be seen and treated in accordance with others' beliefs and valuations, not in line with the patients' own self-image, while experiencing feelings of affliction.

The preservation of order: the use of common approach among staff toward clients in long-term psychiatric care

The authors performed this grounded theory study to gain a deeper understanding of the kinds of social processes that lead to a need among psychiatric nursing staff to reach a common approach on how to act toward individual clients in long-term psychiatric care. They present a theory about the development of such common approaches among staff. The main findings were that in psychiatric group dwellings, when the internal order is perceived as having been disturbed, the staff preserve or restore the internal order by formulating and reaching a common approach. The staff negotiated with each other to achieve an agreement on how to act and behave toward the individual client. The authors isolate and describe different types of order-disturbing incidents and the common approaches taken by the staff in dealing with them. However, their data also show that staff often had difficulties in maintaining a common approach over time.