International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being最新文献

Background: Recently here has been interest in the patient's voice within community mental health settings as a catalyst of service development. There remains a lack of literature documenting the lived experience of inpatient mental health care in Older People's Mental Health (OPMH) inpatient settings. There is a drive within the National Health Service (NHS) to transition care to community settings and improve the discharge process.

Aims: To gain insight into older people's experiences of being discharged from OPMH inpatient settings.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven people discharged from OPMH inpatient wards. They were asked to share their experiences of preparing for discharge, the support during this process, the transition to home, and what should be learned from their experiences. The interviews were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results: Six main themes were identified. 1) Discharge as a gradual process, 2) Feeling involved in discharge planning; feeling empowered, 3) Communication; contrast between positive and negative experiences, 4) Social support; a sense that there was a causal link between support and successful outcome, 5) Importance of nurse support; the benefits of having support, 6) The importance of readiness for discharge; the relationship between how the patient felt before and after discharge.

Conclusions: This is one of the first studies to explore older people's experiences of being discharged from mental health hospitals. It provides insight of the factors that patients believe are important for a positive experience of discharge. Suggestions for service improvements and recommendations on how patients are supported appropriately in the process are discussed.

Purpose: The primary aim of this qualitative study was to explore how sarcoma survivors experienced communication with and support from healthcare professional during their outpatient long-term follow-up care at a university hospital.

Methods: The study employed an exploratory qualitative design, using a phenomenological and hermeneutic approach. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 28 sarcoma patients treated at a dedicated sarcoma centre. The material was analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: Participants reported a high degree of trust in healthcare professionals and overall satisfaction with their oncological care. However, many expressed that physicians could improve their ability to take a more holistic view and to acknowledge how cancer and its treatment had affected patients' health and quality of life. All participants appreciated receiving a structured checklist that helped them identify and communicate challenges and unmet needs. Furthermore, they expressed a need for more comprehensive and continuous information about potential side effects and late complications throughout the treatment and follow-up trajectory.

Conclusion: This study highlights that sarcoma survivors value clear, consistent, and holistic communication about late effects during follow-up care. To strengthen patient-centred communication, healthcare professionals should engage in open dialogue and clarify shared responsibilities related to long-term health management and rehabilitation.

Purpose: Academic stress profoundly affects students' mental health and well-being, often contributing to student attrition. While much research focuses on Western universities, higher education in Slovakia and the Czech Republic remains underexplored in this context. This study aimed to identify sources of academic stress, examine coping strategies, and explore aspects supporting or hindering well-being among university students in these countries.

Method: Eleven semi-structured interviews with students from Slovak and Czech universities were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Seven also kept weekly diaries over five months, enabling chronological tracking of stress and coping. Content analysis revealed five themes tied to semester periods and showing how stressors and coping shifted over time.

Results: Key stressors included exams, procrastination, time management, and balancing academic work, and leisure commitments. Coping strategies ranged from organizational skills to maladaptive behaviors like substance use and social withdrawal. Protective conditions included supportive environments, innovative teaching methods, and recognition of stress.

Discussion: Study highlights the importance of addressing academic stress and provides one of the first longitudinal qualitative accounts from Slovak and Czech universities, combining interviews and diaries to capture culturally specific and universal stressors, coping fluctuations, and the need for integrated institutional and personal strategies.

Purpose: The aim of this study is to describe the essential meaning of the phenomenon of caring relationships in home care for older adults in Denmark, based on their lived experiences of caring relationships with home care nurses.

Methods: Ten older adults receiving home care from registered nurses were interviewed, and a phenomenological analysis was conducted according to the methodological principles of the reflective lifeworld research approach.

Results: The essential meaning of the phenomenon is described as "being in an in-between state in which one's existential freedom is enabled or restricted". This involves being forced to relate and adapt to home care nurses as freedom givers or freedom takers. This is explored further in the three constituents; Space for authenticity and vulnerability, creating conditions for existential freedom, and being in an in-between space between knowing and not knowing.

Conclusions: The phenomenon of caring relationships adds an important aspect to understanding well-being in home care for older adults. To live well in old age, existential concerns must be placed at the core of caring and older adults must be given the possibility to act freely and authentically in order not to feel like an object of care.

Purpose: Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a spinal deformity that often requires long-term bracing to prevent the progression of spinal curvature. However, bracing impacts several aspects of adolescents' lives. This study explores the bodily experiences of adolescents with AIS while receiving brace treatment.

Methods: An exploratory qualitative study was conducted through in-depth interviews with 13 adolescents who had worn a brace for at least 6 months. The interviews explored adolescents' experiences of scoliosis, and the brace's impact on daily life. Data were analysed via reflexive thematic analysis informed by the phenomenological concept of embodiment.

Results: Three main themes were identified in the analysis. First, the inhibited body, where adolescents described feeling restricted by the brace, which limiting physical activities and social interactions. Its rigidity hindered movement and participation. Second, the alienated body, where wearing a brace led to alienation and self-consciousness. Adolescents struggled with body image and feared negative feedback, and hid their brace under oversized clothing. Third, the disciplined body, where following bracing recommendations was difficult. Adolescents balanced required hours with social and school activities, often feeling guilt and frustration.

Conclusions: A holistic approach is required to address the physical and emotional challenges of brace treatment and support adolescents' overall well-being.

Purpose: Due to widespread societal changes, scholars and human resources (HR) practitioners need additional ideas and strategies to encourage employee well-being and "thriving" in the post-COVID workplace. However, academics and practitioners are typically not in conversation on this topic, which can lead to gaps between knowledge and practice.

Methods: Informed by an interdisciplinary approach that bridges theoretical insights from psychology, sociology, and HR practitioner-focused research, we use focus group interviews with 113 full-time employees across five U.S. cities to explore how employees define what it means to thrive at work in contemporary times.

Results: We find that employees' accounts demonstrate the importance of both psychological and interactional factors in their understandings of thriving, including feeling a sense of personal well-being and opportunity at work, feeling appreciated in their interactions with coworkers and leaders, and feeling that the organization has a larger purpose and mission and that they, as employees, contribute to the organization's purpose and success.

Conclusion: Given employees' interpretations, our findings suggest concrete strategies that HR practitioners can take to help employees thrive in the workplace today.

Purpose: Despite lifelong challenges, people with Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) can live meaningful and fulfilling lives. Advancements in well-being science and positive psychology (PP), have shifted focus from reducing illbeing to fostering promoting, defined as striving towards excellence based on one's unique potential. These developments make well-being an achievable goal for those with chronic conditions. Whilst emerging evidence suggests that PP techniques can enhance well-being in ABI populations, wide-spread application remains limited and unmet psychological and social needs continue. This study explored the feasibility and well-being impact of a psychosocial intervention, across three neurorehabilitation centers in Wales.

Method: This qualitative study presents qualitative findings relating to participant experience of an 8-week group-based positive psychosocial intervention, collected during a from a mixed-methods randomised controlled, mixed-methods feasibility study. Twenty participants from the three neurorehabilitation centers participated in this study. Semi-structured focus groups were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis, combining inductive and deductive coding, to explore meanings.

Analysis: Five themes reflected participant views on the feasibility of the intervention and three on its impact. Participants valued the holistic design, structured psychoeducation, and emphasis on building psychological resources. These findings demonstrate that well-being can be actively enhanced in people with ABI through structured group-based PP interventions. Participants described psychological 'boosts' and gains in motivation, self-efficacy, and the capacity to sustain well-being.

Conclusion: These insights provide a strong foundation and practical guidance for a full-scale RCT and future implementation. By translating theory into real-world applications, this study highlights the potential of modern PP-informed approaches to address unmet needs and improve outcomes in individuals with ABI.

Purpose: A dearth of qualitative studies explore what women in middle adulthood perceive as important influences on their attitudes toward ageing, particularly in Lithuania. A greater understanding of ageing acceptance can inform research and action to promote more positive ageing. This study of women in middle adulthood explored their perception of what helps or hinders ageing acceptance.

Methods: Semi-structured interviews with 26 women aged 30-57 years were conducted. We adopted an inductive, experiential orientation within reflexive thematic analysis. Four main themes and 12 subthemes were developed.

Results: "Examples of older figures in the environment" theme described older adults in participants' lives significantly contributing to the image of ageing. The theme "Personal attitudes and traits" discussed personal qualities that were related to ageing acceptance. The theme "(no) pressure in the environment" reflected others' perceptions of ageing influencing one's own ageing views. "Tension over control of ageing" theme illustrated the complicated nature of balancing control and acceptance in the ageing process.

Conclusions: This study highlights the unique roles of the social environment, cultural pressures, internal conflicts, and experiences with older people in ageing acceptance. Interventions aimed at negative perceptions of ageing, better body and self-acceptance could help promote acceptance of ageing.

Purpose: Many mothers face breastfeeding challenges that professional healthcare lacks the capacity to address, which can evoke exposedness and vulnerability. In Sweden, the non-profit Breastfeeding Support Organisation provide breastfeeding peer support. The aim is to deepen the understanding of the meaning of peer support caring, as experienced by breastfeeding peer support mothers.

Method: This study adopts a Reflective Lifeworld Research approach. Twelve lifeworld interviews with peer support mothers in the Swedish Breastfeeding Support Organisation was conducted.

Results: The essential meaning is described as an existential and embodied presence. This is further illuminated through the constituents; embodied knowing awakens caring, embracing the breastfeeding story, transcending time and space, being an anchored companion, and finding an authentic way of being.

Conclusions: Breastfeeding can evoke existential anxiety-feelings of homelessness and uncanniness-that awaken a desire for what Heidegger calls Care: a fundamental mode of being marked by engaged, reciprocal concern for existence. In this study, peer support caring is explored as a voluntary caregiving practice. When this practice embodies elements of Care, it becomes existential caring-a transferable form of care that fosters existential health and wellbeing, meaning and authenticity. Existential caring may enrich professional care, where structural limitations affect breastfeeding support.

Background: Although emergency call centre operators are not physically present at the scene of emergencies, they are still significantly impacted by these events. They are exposed to distressed individuals who express feelings of fear, desperation, and helplessness. Emergency call centre operators must endure this emotional exposure while simultaneously collecting crucial information from callers, relaying this information to responding units, and potentially instructing callers in critical first aid.

Motive: Limited research exists on the work environment and health conditions of emergency call centre operators. The motive of this study is to enhance understanding of the work environment and challenges faced by emergency call operators. The findings are relevant for employers and other professionals within the emergency care chain.

Aim: This study aims to describe the experiences of work-related psychosocial health among emergency call centre operators.

Methods: This study employed a qualitative approach, with data collected through 16 semi-structured interviews. The analysis was conducted using qualitative content analysis.

Result: The analysis revealed one main theme, four themes, and 12 subthemes. The main theme was "Having oneself as a stake," built on the themes "Facing challenges," "Being affected as a person," "Feeling ignored by organisational conditions," and "Drawing strength from rewarding conditions."

Conclusion: The workplace environment of emergency call centre operators can have a negative impact on their psychosocial health. This can lead to decreased quality of emergency call responses and less accurate assessments of critical situations. Further research is needed to identify improvements in operational conditions for emergency call centre operators and establish goals for enhancing work-related health.