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To explore the phenomenon of non-attendance for psychotherapy in psychiatric outpatient care for patients with affective disorders. Ten patients, seven women and three men, aged 25–51 years, agreed to participate in the study. The participants were recruited from a psychiatric outpatient clinic for patients with affective disorders at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Sweden. A semi-structured interview guide was used during the interviews, which were audiotaped, transcribed and analyzed using content analysis. All informants expressed concern that they had been absent from booked appointments. The main reason given was that the mental illness that caused the need for treatment also caused the absence. They expressed ambiguity about the goals and method of treatment and showed ambivalence regarding the possibility of being helped and achieving change. The participants also highlighted shortcomings in communication with the psychologist regarding their non-attendance. Four themes were generated: A vicious circle, Processes without direction, Ambivalence and Inadequate communication. The study shows that missed appointments have a negative effect on the treatment process. If the patient and the psychologist jointly decide to start psychotherapy, it is thus important that the psychologist promptly addresses the problem of missed appointments and takes a professional responsibility for limiting the risk of another failed attempt at psychotherapy. In some cases, it is necessary to consider whether psychotherapy is an appropriate form of treatment or not. The study shows the importance of a careful assessment phase, where questions about motivation, goals and previous experiences of missed appointments are examined. The informants were not able to raise the issue of missed appointments in a larger perspective; their but focus was rather on the current symptom burden. It is therefore the responsibility of the psychologist to raise the issue and maintain a dialogue about goals, direction and evaluation of the psychotherapy. The psychologist bears a professional responsibility to limit the risk of another failed attempt to provide psychotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on interviews with legal practitioners working with or within antiracist social justice movements in Sweden, we explore some dilemmas and paradoxes that appear when social movements pursue struggles for anti-racist social justice through the legal arena. How do the interviewees understand and critically relate to legal practices in contemporary anti-racist social justice struggles? What are the conditions of engagement of these organisations in the legal arena and how do they impact social justice struggles in Sweden? What are the stakes in the legal practices of these movements? Rather than a strategically chosen tool for social justice, legal practice could be understood as a kind of self-defence, as resorting to law is often a response to an unjust legal system, oppressive treatment by the state or disadvantage and deprivation. The interviewees' reflections on their legal practices are informed by a fundamental ambivalence between the ideological commitment in the critique of law and their position from which it is impossible to ignore the legal arena. Instead of taking a clear stance for or against the law as a tool for social justice struggles, we have attempted to understand what are the methods and the effects of legal practice that grow from this ambivalence. The accounts of our interviewees indicate that both practical strategies and ways of accounting for these aim at subverting and challenging the law while at the same time using it. Throughout the analysis we have conceptualised these strategies as decentring, re-politicising and redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Communication & Culture is the property of Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan Graduate Institute of Mass Communication and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 2018, the Swedish library consortium, Bibsam, decided to cancel big deal subscriptions with Elsevier. Many researchers (n = 4,221) let their voices be heard in a survey on the consequences of the cancellation. Almost a third of them (n = 1,241) chose to leave free-text responses to the survey question 'Is there anything you would like to add?'. A content analysis on these responses resulted in six themes and from these, three main conclusions are drawn. First, there is no consensus among researchers on whether the cancellation was for good or evil. The most common argument in favour of the cancellation was the principle. The most common argument against cancellation was that it harms researchers and research. A third of the free-text responses expressed ambivalence towards the cancellation, typically as a conflict between wanting to change the current publishing system and simultaneously suffering from the consequences of the cancellation. The general support for open access in principle reveals a flawed publishing system, as most feel the pressure to publish in prestigious journals behind paywalls in practice. Second, it was difficult for researchers to take a position for or against cancellation due to their limited knowledge of the ongoing work of higher education institutions and library consortia. Finally, there are indications that the cancellation made researchers reflect on open access and to some extent alter their publication pattern through their choice of copyright licence and publication channel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limited attention has been given to the underlying prerequisites for how the tourism industry can develop a well-informed, holistic and strategic governance that would lead to more robust sustainable tourism governance. By introducing a theoretical approach stressing a deeper and more contextual understanding of tourism development in the face of a growing interest in the sharing economy, the study engenders insights into the complexity of one public tourism organisation's creativity and ambivalence when approaching alternative tourism strategies. The aim is to undertake an in-depth investigation into the evolution of one tourism sharing economy concept initiated and implemented by a public tourism organisation in Sweden, focusing especially on the factors driving and hampering change from traditional tourism growth to a sharing business logic. Concluding remarks revolve around the complex environment in which the public tourism organisation manoeuvres. On the one hand, the study considers the lock-in of the vertical tourism-centric discourse and, on the other hand, the potential of breaking free from the traditional business model through co-creational capacity building in the regional context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: For a long time, altruism was the basis for caring. Today, when society is more individualized, it is of interest to explore the meaning of altruism in nursing. Methods: In all, 13 nurses from a Swedish acute care setting participated in two focus group interviews performed as Socratic dialogues. Data were analyzed using a phenomenological hermeneutical method. Ethical considerations: Ethical issues were considered throughout the process according to established ethical principles. Informed consent was obtained from all participants, confidentiality regarding the data was guaranteed and quotations anonymized. Findings: Altruism created a sense of ambivalence and ambiguity, described as a rise of sovereign expressions of life caused by "the other's" need, but also unwillingness to take unconditional responsibility for "the other." Conclusion: Society's expectations of altruism and nurses' perception of their work as a salaried job collide in modern healthcare. Nurses are not willing to fully respond to the ethical demand of the patients. In case of a disaster, when nurses personal safety, life and health may be at risk, there might be reasons to question whether the healthcare organization would be able to fulfill its obligations of providing healthcare to an entire population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The competitive university has brought about changes in structural conditions and created contradictions which are embedded in institutions. The present study is based on interviews with 42 early career researchers in the field of education sciences in Sweden. We analyse how members of this group handle career possibilities and limitations in relation to gender and to the structural ambivalence embedded in the higher education system. Our results illustrate that the structure of education sciences contains power relations and processes of differentiation, which give researchers different access to resources that can be used to handle structural ambivalence. This is illustrated in how, for example, women researchers, more than men, lack resources to solve the experienced tensions surrounding them, and therefore often work in areas where they are able to cope. Men researchers can often solve their career ambivalence by avoiding traps and gaining recognition, and are therefore able to advance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of the present study is on how a number of Swedish schools define and categorise students who have been exposed to different forms of abusive acts and violence at school. The empirical study was designed to explore six Swedish urban secondary schools. The results indicated a recurrent pattern in school officials' narratives, which is that officials often express difficulty defining the actual problem or crime. The results also revealled ambivalence when students' problems were taken over by other professionals. Reporting to the police and the social services was sometimes a relief, it can provide an opportunity for professional advice; at the same time the informants reported a lack of information and control during this process. Consequently, there was also a socio-political struggle involved in defining 'problematic' situations and solutions to relational difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a case study of leisure boating along the Swedish West Coast, this study explores how two conflicting roles – consumers and environmental citizens – produce and are produced by a highly ambivalent neoliberal discourse. On the one hand, this discourse supports economic growth and increasing consumption, while on the other hand it expects consumers to consider the environmental impacts of their actions and make pro-environmental choices. Through a mixed-method approach based on the application of consumer value theory (CVT) in combination with a motivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) model, this study demonstrates how the consumer role is predominantly produced and reproduced through social pressure and market forces as well as emotional and habitual attachment to boat-life and boating. This (re)production of the consumer role conflicts with the environmental citizenship role, as boaters agree that protection is needed while they also put high value on the sea as a place of freedom. The study suggests that there is a need for an environmental policy that recognises how the consumer role is produced and reproduced. Such policy should move beyond the assumption of the sovereignty of the individual and focus more closely on the interaction between humans and the sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Overdose is a significant cause of death among heroin users. Frequently, other heroin users are present when an overdose occurs, which means the victim's life could be saved. There is a lack of studies that, based on heroin users own stories, examine their views, assessments, and responses to witnessed overdoses. Methods The study is based on qualitative interviews with thirty-five heroin users who witnessed someone else's overdose. Results The heroin users generally had a positive attitude towards assisting peers who had overdosed. A number of factors and circumstances, however, contribute to witnesses often experiencing resistance to or ambivalence about responding. The witness's own high, the difficulty in assessing the seriousness of the situation, an unwillingness to disturb someone else's high, uncertainty about the motive behind the overdose and whether the victim does or does not want assistance as well as fear of police involvement, were common factors that acted as barriers to adequate responses in overdose situations. Conclusion The fact that being high makes it difficult to respond to overdoses, using traditional methods, argues for simpler and more effective response techniques. This can include intranasal naloxone programs for heroin users. The findings regarding the uncertainty about the intention of the overdose victim and the sensitivity to the experience of a good high argue for more up-front communication and discussion amongst using peers so that they can make their intentions clear to each other. Issues like this can be addressed in overdose education interventions. Overdose prevention measures also need to address the fact that fear of the police acts as a barrier to call emergency services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sweden provides strong support for childbearing and parenthood, including generously subsidized medical, maternal, and child care, paid parental leave, and child allowances. In this context, attitudes towards parenthood are likely to have a particularly strong impact on the decision about whether and when to have children. We examine the links between first births and holding attitudes about children, not just of positive and negative attitudes, but also of ambivalence, namely those who both value children but also value the things that compete with parenthood for young adults' time and other resources. Our analysis shows, measuring attitudes before the transition to parenthood, that ambivalence about childbearing delays the transition to parenthood, but not nearly as much as holding purely negative attitudes. Further, reporting an ambivalent experience from the first child had no significant effect on further childbearing, which testifies to the strong two-child norm in Sweden. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in higher education (HE) in Sweden, from elite to mass education, with an increased number of students and institutions, has raised questions about the role of HE in society. Relating to conflicts between discourses of employability, democracy, traditional academic norms and experiences of non-traditional students, the aim of this article is to explore and discuss non-traditional students' motives for studying as part of the process of the formation of student identities. In this article motives and commitment to HE are two aspects of student identity apparent in student narratives. The material is based on 48 biographical interviews with non-traditional students at three HE institutions. The result shows different motives for entering, dropping out and continuing to study. From these motives, we have identified eight student identity types that are analysed in relation to commitment to HE, and to being a 'continuer' versus a 'drop out': the altruistic student, the ambivalent student, the car-park student, the life-long learner, the at-risk-of-failing student, the instrumental student, the one-track student and the self-realiser. These identity types are further discussed in relation to conflicting discourses of HE in society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A qualitative pilot study on the attitudes of some citizens in southern Sweden toward predictive genetic testing – and a quantitative nation wide opinion poll targeting the same issues, was initiated by the Cultural Scientific Research Team of BAGADILICO. The latter is an international biomedical research environment on neurological disease at Lund University. The data of the two studies crystallized through analysis into themes around which the informants’ personal negotiations of opinions and emotions in relation to the topic centred: Concept of Risk,‘Relations and Moral Multi-layers, Worry, Agency and Autonomy, Authority, and Rationality versus Emotion. The studies indicate that even groups of people that beforehand are non-engaged in the issue, harbour complex and ambivalent emotions and opinions toward questions like this. A certain kind of situation bound pragmatism that with difficulty could be shown by quantitative methods alone emerges. This confirms our belief that methodological consideration of combining quantitative and qualitative methods is crucial for gaining a more complex representation of attitudes, as well as for problematizing the idea of a unified public open to inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To study donors' motivation and ambivalence before donation of gametes. Design. Cross-sectional study. Setting. Seven Swedish university hospital clinics. Sample. Of the 220 eligible oocyte donors and 156 eligible sperm donors who were approached, 181 (82%) oocyte donors and 119 (76%) sperm donors agreed to participate. Methods. Gamete donors completed a questionnaire in the clinic prior to the donation. Main outcome measures. Motives and ambivalence towards donation. Results. In general, gamete donors donated for altruistic reasons (95%). A greater percentage of oocyte than sperm donors had a personal experience of biological children, which motivated them to donate (65 vs. 32%). A greater percentage of sperm donors compared with oocyte donors were curious about their own fertility (24 vs. 9%), and they also believed that they were contributing what they regarded as their own good genes to other couples (45 vs. 20%). Prior to donation, potential sperm donors were more ambivalent towards donating than were oocyte donors (39 and 21%, p < 0.001). Conclusions. The motives to donate gametes are mainly altruistic. We conclude that men and women differ in their view towards donating gametes. Sperm donors had a higher degree of ambivalent feelings towards donation than oocyte donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivational interviewing (MI) is a client-centred, directive counselling style for helping people to explore and resolve ambivalence about behaviour change and shown to decrease drug and alcohol use. A five-session semi-structured MI intervention [Beteende, Samtal, Förändring (BSF; Behaviour, Counselling, Change)] was implemented in Swedish prisons. To examine whether, in a real-life implementation of semi-structured MI, staff receiving ongoing MI training, based on audio-recorded feedback in peer groups (BSF+), possess greater MI skill compared with staff receiving workshop-only MI training (BSF), and staff conducting usual prison planning interviews (UPI). Prisoners were randomised to one of the three interventions. The first sessions between staff and prisoner with complete data were assessed with the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity Code 3.0. Content analysis of 45 staff: prisoner sessions revealed that counsellors in the BSF+ group were significantly more competent in MI than those in the UPI group, but there was no difference in MI competency between the BSF and UPI groups. Overall, staff were rated as not having achieved beginning proficiency. Our findings suggest that staff delivering motivational interviewing programmes for substance-misusing prisoners in Sweden are not being given sufficient training for the task. Previous literature has suggested that staff need more than a basic 3- to 5-day workshop training, but our findings suggest that they may need longer-term continuing supervision and support than previously recognised. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dunér A. Motives, experiences and strategies of next of kin helping older relatives in the Swedish welfare context: a qualitative study Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 54–62 © 2008 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Next of kin provide the major part of the help given to older people in Sweden, a country where the official goals of formal eldercare are universality and extensive coverage. This qualitative interview study investigates the thoughts and actions of next of kin who provide informal help to older relatives who also receive formal help from the municipal eldercare. Informal help-giving, in the context of Swedish social policy, was connected with a multiplicity of motives, experiences and strategies. The motives for help-giving were moral considerations, emotional attachment and ‘out of necessity’. The experiences of next of kin support the idea of ambivalence as a significant feature of informal help-giving. Different strategies were employed, both active and passive in nature, to manage their situation. The study points out the importance of outlining working forms and methods of collaboration for older persons and their informal and formal networks to lessen the ambivalence experienced by help-giving next of kin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the methods of ethnology used to study structural discrimination in institutions in Sweden. The author examines four different types of discrimination: ignorance, recruitment through networking, ambiguity, and ambivalence. The difficulty of expressing the results of this study to those in authority positions, those able to initiate change, is also explored. It is thus suggested that, given the opportunity, ethnologists can be agents of change.

Investigates the links of adult attachment style and relationship status to various indexes of religiosity in Sweden. Comparison between the religiosity of singles and lovers; Correlation between ambivalence and avoidance ratings with religiosity; Association between security and religiousness.

Objective: To explore oocyte and sperm donors' emotional stress, experiences of care and satisfaction after donation., Design: Prospective multicenter study., Settings: All fertility clinics performing gamete donation in Sweden during the period 2005 to 2008., Population: Of 220 eligible oocyte donors who were approached, 181 agreed to complete the first questionnaire and 165 completed the second questionnaire 2 months after oocyte donation. Of 156 eligible sperm donors 119 accepted to complete the first questionnaire before donation. Eighty-nine participants completed the second questionnaire 2 months after sperm donation., Methods: Standardized and study-specific questionnaires., Main Outcome Measures: Satisfaction with the donation, respondents' mental health and overall care., Results: A larger percentage of sperm donors (97.8%) were satisfied with their overall experience of being a donor than oocyte donors (85.9%, p = 0.003). Some oocyte and sperm donors did not receive sufficient information about practical issues (9.1% and 13.5%, respectively) and future consequences (12.8% and 3.4%, respectively, p = 0.014). The donors' symptoms of anxiety and depression did not show any differences in relation to negative or positive perceptions of satisfaction. The donors who did not indicate ambivalence before treatment were on average almost five times more satisfied compared with those who did indicate ambivalence (odds ratio 4.71; 95% CI 1.34-16.51)., Conclusions: Most donors were satisfied with their contribution after the donation. Oocyte and sperm donors who expressed ambivalence before donation were less satisfied after donation. In vitro fertilization staff fulfilled most of the donors' needs for information and care., (© 2013 The Authors. Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of Nordic Federation of Societies of Obstetrics and Gynecology.)