This paper extracts the findings of the impact study on the Learning Facilitator programme’s study, a 6-month blended learning professional programme accredited by the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt (Germany) and delivered by Jesuit Worldwide Learning to teachers in context of marginalisation. Focused on elucidating how the Learning Facilitator programme nurtures graduates' soft skills in teaching and fosters their servant-leadership, this paper underscores how the programme redefines the temporal horizons for its participants, enabling them to transcend established frames of reference and (...) cultivate inclusive and conducive learning environments both within and beyond the confines of traditional classrooms. This contribution seeks to bring the seldom heard voices at the centre of the discussion on “time for education”, echoing graduates’ critical exploration in reevaluating conventional frames of reference in pedagogical contexts. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to illustrate concrete problems in the asymmetrical nurse–patient power relationship. It is an ethical demand that the nurse is faced with the challenges that the power in the relation is administered so that the patient's room for action is expanded and trust maintained. It is an essential message in care philosophy, but in clinical practice, success is not always achievable. A hidden and more or less unconscious restriction of the patient's room for action may (...) result in the excesses of care. Three selected aspects: dependence, trust, and power described by the Danish philosopher K.E. Løgstrup and the Norwegian nursing philosopher Kari Martinsen's care philosophy has inspired this empirically based examination of some current barriers in the asymmetrical nurse–patient relationship. On the basis of qualitative interviews with six patients and six nurses, the research thus provides an identifying and problem‐exploratory examination of some current obstacles in which the handling of trust and power reflects the excesses of care. The findings develop three themes. ‘Being a burden’ acknowledges that the balance of power will always tip to the nurse's advantage. The second theme, ‘Doing only what's absolutely necessary’, shows how a fixation with ‘technicalism’ creates a distance between people that may constrain the patient's room for action. The last theme is concerning the nurse's ability to navigate between closeness and distance is essential in avoiding ‘the excesses of care’, paternalism, and overprotectiveness. A situation in which distance takes the upper hand and care turns into paternalism. A different situation would arise if the nurse's emotions became sentimental or intimate with the result that closeness gets the upper hand. To avoid a harmful exercise of power and the excesses of care, the findings have demonstrated that a relationship‐based caring is a demand for situation‐specific sensitive attention skills. (shrink)

Patients have to be respected with dignity as the masters of their own lives. The problem, however, is that autonomy may become so dominant and the fundamental value of caring in professional nursing that the patient’s dignity is affected. The aim of this article is to point out some of the issues with the interplay between autonomy, also called self-management and dignity. Given voice to the patient perspective the background is provided by cases from research conducted through qualitative interviews with (...) patients and expanded by summarizing empirical research concerning the interplay between autonomy and dignity. The search strategy and the research question gave five empirical research papers and three theoretical studies and concept analyses. A concise overview of the relevant research contains information about all the major elements of the studies. The background research and an interpretative summary address new issues to be taken into account in dignity conserving care. (shrink)

This article is about nursing theories, the development of nursing knowledge and the underlying, hidden epistemology. The current technical–economical rationality in society and health care calls for a specific kind of knowledge based on a traditional Western, Socratic view of science. This has an immense influence on the development of nursing knowledge. The purpose of the article was therefore to discuss the hidden epistemology of nursing knowledge and theories seen in a broad historical context and point to an alternative epistemology (...) for a future context. It is a question about which nursing theories and what nursing knowledge should be developed in order to benefit patients and relatives of the future. We suggest that future knowledge development in nursing be developed in an interchange between theory and practice and guided by philosophy like a kind of pendulum where all three elements are treated as equals. We suggest a framework for the development of nursing knowledge based on a caring‐ethical practice, a theory on life phenomena in suffering and relationship‐based nursing, and thereby, we may be able to help patients to be cured, to recover, to be alleviated or comforted when suffering. (shrink)

In the present study, we have demonstrated hysteresis phenomena in the excitability of single, enzymatically dissociated guinea pig ventricular myocytes. Membrane potentials were recorded with patch pipettes in the whole-cell current clamp configuration. Repetitive stimulation with depolarizing current pulses of constant cycle length and duration but varying strength led to predictable excitation (1:l) and non-excitation (1:0) patterns depending on current strength. In addition, transition between patterns depended on the direction of current intensity change and stable hysteresis loops were obtained in (...) stimulus:response pattern vs. current intensity plots in 14 cells. Increase of pulse duration and decrease of stimulation rate contributed to a reduction in hysteresis loop areas. Changes in amplitude and shape of the subthreshold responses during the transitions from one stable pattern to the other, suggested that activity led to an increase in membrane resistance, particularly in the voltage domain between resting potential, and threshold. Therefore, we modelled the dynamic behaviour of the single cells as a function of diastolic membrane resistance, using previously published analytical solutions. Numerical iteration of the analytical model equations closely reproduced the experimental hysteresis loops in both qualitative and quantitative ways. In particular, the effect of stimulation frequency on the model was similar to the experimental findings. The overall study suggests that the excitability pattern of guinea pig ventricular myocytes accounts for hysteresis and bistabilities when current intensity is allowed to fluctuate around threshold levels. (shrink)

In the context of health care the aim of the article is to bring another meaning to the concept “need” that goes beyond the human activity; the drive to satisfy needs. Another meaning incorporates an ethical and existential nature of life phenomena. An example from empirical research on living with a chronic disease as seen from the patient’s point of view provides the basis for arguing another meaning of the concept “need”. The meanings and nuances in the life phenomena of (...) hope, doubt and life courage are exemplified in qualitative interviews with chronic sufferers. A combination of empirical research and Danish life philosophy. Research has shown that the interaction between the professional health care provider and the patient and family may lead to a more or less unconscious and inappropriate administration of power. Research also indicates that by overlooking or ignoring the existential qualities in human life and suffering, the professional health care provider may deprive the patient and family of their room for action. To add a deeper understanding of the existential meaning of being a person with an illness, the article shows the different human dimensions concerning life phenomena and needs. Developing sensitive, situation-specific attention offers a response to the challenge faced by health care providers in collaboration with the patient: How can we open our eyes to the most significant features of the situation which arise on the onset of illness. (shrink)

Background:Background: In general, qualitative research design often involves merging together various data collection strategies, and researcher’s may need to be prepared to spend longer periods i...

The confinement of the population into their homes as a result of COVID-19 has entailed a notable increase in the consumption of diverse media. This exploratory study aimed to examine how the increase in media consumption was related to subjective happiness and psychological well-being. For this purpose, a questionnaire was administered to a sample of Spanish adults to assess their consumption of different media before and during confinement. Moreover, participants were evaluated for hedonic, eudaimonic, social, and experienced happiness by using (...) the Pemberton Happiness Index. The results underlined the great increase in the consumption of TV for entertainment and social networking sites during confinement. Furthermore, it was found that higher consumption was negatively correlated with the level of happiness, so that, people who reported greater well-being, both subjective and psychological, spent less time watching TV and using SNS. In contrast, no association was found between the level of happiness and the consumption of news and radio. Therefore, it seems that far from cultivating greater happiness, those who engaged in heavy consumption of TV entertainment and SNS during confinement were less happy than those who did so more moderately and spent more time using other media or performing other activities. (shrink)

Ongoing changes in many Western countries have resulted in more healthcare services being transferred to municipalities and taking place in patients’ homes. This greatly impacts nurses’ work in home care, making their work increasingly diverse and demanding. In this study, we explore home‐care nursing through a critical discourse analysis of focus group interviews with home‐care nurses. Drawing on insights from positioning theory, we discuss the content and delineation of their work and the interweaving of contextual changes. Nurses hold a crucial (...) position in home healthcare, particularly in ensuring care for sicker patients with complex needs. Assessing health needs, performing advanced care, and at the same time, providing customized solutions in various homes were identified as distinctive for home‐care nurses’ work. Changes have made nurses’ work become driven by comprehensive tasks and acute medical needs that require much of their competence and time. Urgent care seems to take precedence in nurses’ work, leaving less time and attention for other tasks such as conversations and support for coping with everyday life. This underlines the need to investigate and discuss the content and scope of nurses’ work to help shape the further development of home‐care nursing. (shrink)

This is an essay based on a story with observations, about present and sparkling moments from everyday life coexisting with a mother living with dementia. The story is used to begin philosophical underpinnings reflecting on ‘how it could be otherwise’. Dementia deploys brutal existential experiences such as cognitive deterioration, decline in mental functioning and often hurtful social judgements. The person living with dementia goes through transformation and changes of self. Cognitive decline progressively disrupts the foundations upon which social connectedness is (...) built, often creating a profound sense of insecurity. The challenge for carers and healthcare professionals is therefore to find ways of clarifying a concept of agency. It will be worthwhile developing the ability of attuning into ‘what is there’ arising from every corner of the care situation. Understanding and practicing this can strengthen existence and the experience of connectedness and meaning, empowering the person with dementia. It is important to find ways, relational moves, in which carers and healthcare professionals can embed the creativity appearing in mundane everyday situations filled with surplus of meaning, sharing mental landscapes (and embodied relational understanding) with the person living with dementia – seizing and sharing aesthetic moments (verbal and nonverbal) being present together. We argue that carers and healthcare professionals may find this understanding of care useful. This implies looking into a phenomenological‐hermeneutic perspective developing competences as well as practical wisdom understanding and being aware of the creative and innovative possibilities (often preverbal and unnoticed small things) in everyday life of what we, inspired by psychoanalyst Daniel Stern, call sparkling moments of meeting, creating experience with the other that is personally undergone and lived through in the present. (shrink)

This article discusses how existential phenomenology may serve as a frame in a mixed‐methods study of changes in weight and body composition among women in adjuvant treatment for breast cancer. In accordance with ontologically and epistemologically fundamental assumptions in nursing, we link mixed‐methods and existential phenomenology from the perspective of the French philosopher Maurice Merleau‐Ponty and his notion of a unified body subject. Letting this perspective permeate our philosophy, methodology and issues at the method level in mixed‐method research undermines the (...) distinction between first‐ and third‐person perspective when applying and integrating different data sources in a mixed‐methods study. Applying Merleau‐Ponty's third way, the women's bodily experiences appear as gestalt; a ‘figure’ against a ground of existential threats that are grasped through insight from data integrating in joint displays, which revealed the women's experiences on a deep existential level. Existential phenomenology as a frame in mixed‐method studies can speak not only to nurses but also to a multidisciplinary audience in a shared attempt to deepen the understanding of a patient's healthcare problem. (shrink)

Internationally, primary health care has in recent years gained a more central position in political priorities to ensure sustainable health care for the population. Thus, more people receive health care locally and in their own homes, where home‐care nursing plays a large role. In this article, we investigate how home‐care nursing is articulated and made visible in contemporary Norwegian policy documents. The study is a Fairclough‐inspired critical discourse analysis seeking to uncover the position of nursing in the prevailing political ideologies (...) on current primary health care. In the documents, we identified several complementary and conflicting understandings about home‐care nursing. Home‐care nursing is presented as a basic part of a municipality's health services, but at the same time, its content and contribution are unclear and almost invisible. We argue that the absence of nursing leads to significant perspectives being left out and tie this to the fact that some patient groups and tasks seem to be disadvantaged. The political placement of home‐care nursing in the health‐care landscape is thus not just about nursing as a professional practice but also concerns fundamental care values in our society in relation to disadvantaged groups and work tasks. (shrink)

Background:Caring for a partner with primary malignant brain tumour can be a dramatic life-changing event. Primary malignant brain tumour is known to give poor life expectancy and severe neurological and cognitive symptoms, such as changed behaviour and personality, which demand greater caring responsibilities from spouses.Aim:The aim of the study is to explore ethical dilemmas spouses experience in the everyday care of a partner in treatment for primary malignant brain tumour.Research design, participants and research context:A phenomenological and hermeneutic qualitative descriptive design (...) was adopted as a method for collecting and analysing data. Ten spouses were interviewed twice using an in-depth, semi-structured interview guide. The interviews took place at the spouses’ homes or at the hospital.Ethical consideration:Ethical matters were considered throughout the research process. Permission from The National Committee on Health Research Ethics and the Danish Data Protection Agency was obtained.Findings:The analysis showed that the spouses perceived daily ethical dilemmas in caring for a partner with primary malignant brain tumour. Their life as well as their partner’s life had changed considerably. The main theme that emerged therefore was ‘oscillating in a changing relationship’. This theme was further elaborated in three subthemes that in more detail demonstrated the dilemmas: ‘doing the right thing in unpredictable daily situations’; ‘torn between patience and guilt’; and ‘living in a time of uncertainty, hope and despair’.Conclusion:Caring for a partner with changed behaviour and personality due to primary malignant brain tumour may involve exhausting ethical caring dilemmas. Spouses’ married life may change to a semi-professional asymmetrical relationship, which is challenged by the oscillation between acting responsibly for their partners’ well-being and caring dilemmas with no answer for what the right thing to do is. Mixed feelings of right and wrong, patience and guilt, hope and despair seem to be spousal companions through their partners’ progressing illness. (shrink)

Included in William Wollaston, The Religion of Nature Delineated, ed. Stanley Tweyman (Delmar, NY: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1974 [1724]). Editor: Stanley Tweyman .

Reprinted with Introduction by C. A. Patrides. Delmar, NY: Scholar’s Facsimiles and Reprints, 1979.