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Lifespan is reduced by approximately 15 years in individuals suffering from severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Contributing to this is an increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome, an assortment of factors that confer risk of diabetes type 2 and cardiovascular disease. Body Mass Index (BMI) is predictive of metabolic syndrome. Previous research indicates that the BMI of incarcerated individuals not suffering from a major mental disorder increase during incarceration, especially amongst females. However, information on the development of BMI during forensic psychiatric care is scarcer, and follow-up periods have been short. Thus, the authors extracted data from the Swedish National Forensic Psychiatric Register regarding the longitudinal development of BMI in 3389 individuals who received court mandated forensic psychiatric care in Sweden during 2009–2020. A significant increase in BMI by 1.1% per year was observed during the first four years of care. After this, changes were no longer significant. Factors associated with a larger increase in BMI were female gender, being prescribed antipsychotics, young age at admission, receiving outpatient care, and access to an external support person. There was an inverse association between BMI and symptom severity. Substantial heterogeneity was observed in longitudinal changes in individual BMI and in comparisons between individuals receiving care at different clinics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we discuss residential staff in Sweden. Here, residential care is part of the municipal child welfare system, which covers services targeting juvenile delinquency as well as other residential care services. Children and young people placed in Swedish residential care have diverse needs, from mainly supportive needs to advanced behavioral problems, and the field consists of open and secure residential care units. There is limited knowledge about the staff working in residential care. This article helps to fill this knowledge gap by giving an overall picture of staff educational attainments, age and gender in Swedish residential care between the years of 2008–2020. To reason about staff qualifications, we use theoretical concepts from sociological theory on professions. Findings show that residential care in Sweden can be analyzed as a pre-professional field, dominated by staff with low levels of education. In addition, we show that the field is dominated by women – even if the proportion of men is higher than in other areas of social work – and that the majority of staff are between 30 and 64 years old. Some differences between open and secure residential care were found, the most notable concerning educational levels and gender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rise of violent incidents at secure units for adolescents has been reported by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care. Meanwhile, research aiming to understand how staff manage violence seems to be lacking. By examining an in-depth narrative by one staff member, "Meral", this study aims to understand, on the one hand, how staff describe the violence they encounter in light of the context and situation, and on the other, how they describe their handling of violence from outside the immediate environment. Drawing on Georgakopoulou and Bamberg, identities are understood to be produced and performed within personal narratives from different positions in relation to one's surroundings. The study shows how Meral's professional identity is shaped and affected by violence. Of essential importance is the way Meral presents herself to herself: as "not afraid." A narrative interpretation is that fear does not fit within the framework of the professional identity for staff. A key element of placing essential responsibility on staff to manage violence is keeping lines of communication open, which could be made clearer in policy documents, training and supervision. Therefore, studies like this one could result in the development of communication strategies for staff. This is important because emotional rules can generate emotional cultures that in the long run can be destructive for both staff and young people. Only when the emotional rules are identified can staff develop strategies for dealing with the violent incidents that are part of their professional life in a qualified way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secure units for adolescents are emotion-filled places for various reasons, yet previous studies have shown that fear seems to be an emotion which is difficult to deal with in these workplaces. This paper examines how secure unit staff describe their workday, focusing on fear. The analysis applies theories about emotional work as well as the concept of fear. The article builds on 53 semi-structured interviews with staff at three secure units for detained boys and girls run by the Swedish National Board of Institutional Care. The findings illustrate different ways in which staff handle emotions, such as fear, at these institutions. Results are discussed with respect to five themes: (a) the importance of control; (b) safety: not a regular workplace; (c) not my anxiety, but the young person's; (d) security: standing safe with coworkers; and (e) the ambiguous fear. The results show the importance of taking emotions seriously in daily work, as this renders visible how staff emotionally socialize into their organization. Due to a lack of education and professional identity among staff, the socialization process is highly relevant, as it is primarily perceptions of youth and coworkers that control and develop professionalization for staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on how one staff member at a therapeutic residential institution negotiates his work identity, exploring how he narrates a violent incident, the formation of work identity, and how the adolescent figures within these processes. Mishler argues that when speaking, we perform identity. As social actors, we select and organise language, telling stories that fit the audience, our intentions, and the occasion. The article is framed both theoretically and methodologically through the assumption that narrative is a fundamental human way of giving meaning to our experiences. Identities are understood as being produced and performed within personal narratives. Thus, in an interview situation, narratives provide an interactive space for personal subjectivities to be expressed and enacted. Drawing on Mishler, we find three essential 'turning points' that shape Alex's work identity: (1) the violent incident, (2) the adolescent's return to the ward, and (3) Alex's subsequent change of wards. We interpret Alex's narrative as a 'narrative of resistance' that may have practical day-to-day implications for the field of institutional care and help expand the staff's clinical toolbox. Further, Alex's narrative is a vital example of stories of violence, which can be incorporated into policy documents on violence management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the Swedish site investigations and research associated with the disposal of spent nuclear fuel, tracer experiments in deep boreholes have been employed in order to characterize solute transport and hydraulic connectivity in the fractured bedrock at two sites-Forsmark and Laxemar-Simpevarp. Performance and analytical results are presented from a suite of tracer experiments in varying scales, from single-hole injection-withdrawal tests, intermediate-scale tests with sorbing tracers, to large-scale connectivity tests over distances up to several hundred meters in major fracture zones or networks of zones. In addition to demonstrating transport connectivity over large distances, a general result is that the single-hole tests, as well as the cross-hole tests with sorbing tracers, have clearly demonstrated the process of solute retention of water-conductive features in the rock at different scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predicting flow and transport properties of fractured rock masses is a major challenge in a large number of hydrological and geotechnical applications. A common approach is to derive Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) models from fracture mapping in the field and core mapping, as well as from hydraulic and tracer tests. The present work aims ultimately at conditioning DFN models to geophysical data (Ground Penetrating Radar – GPR). The application in mind relates to safety assessments of nuclear waste repositories; specifically, the conditioning is aimed at improving DFN models at scales from a few to tens of meters around the canisters containing the spent nuclear fuel. All GPR and auxiliary experiments were completed at the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory in Sweden, in a test tunnel (20 m long, 4 m wide and 4.5 m high) located 410 m below the sea level. The tunnel floor is flat and the main rock types are granite, diorite and granodiorite. The first field campaign aimed at imaging the 3D distribution of the main open fractures at the site using 160 MHz, 450 MHz and 750 MHz antennas providing investigation depths of 10 m, 8 m and 5 m, respectively. The imaged diffractors and reflectors were grouped into three zones ranging from, supposedly, more permeable to less permeable regions and one borehole was drilled in each zone (BH1 to BH3). Based on the drilling, core log data and hydraulic tests, the most transmissive borehole agreed with the GPR classification, while the most permeable 1-m section (2.23E-10 m2/s) encountered was found in the region with the least GPR reflections. The few open fractures encountered (five 1-m sections had detectable flow rates out of 27) have very small apertures and it seems that filled fractures with larger apertures are responsible for the stronger GPR reflections at the site. To infer fracture connectivity patterns, we conducted surface GPR surveys during tracer test injections. Because of the saline formation water, we injected deionized water to achieve an electrical contrast together with Uranine and Rhodamine tracers for solute transport testing purposes. The injection took place in the middle borehole BH2 between 3.2-3.7 m depth with withdrawal in either borehole BH1 (3-6 m) or BH3 (4-5 m). Despite a pressure difference exceeding 40 bar, the injection rate was 10 mL/min only. For this reason, the injection was pursued for 24 hours (accumulated injected volume of 10 to 13 L) to increase the chances of observing a GPR time-lapse signature. The mass recoveries in the experiments were 20 to 30 %. These hydrogeophysical data will be further processed and used to reduce uncertainties and improve conditioning of site-specific hydraulic DFN models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]