AIM: The aim of this study was to explore young people's experiences of resources and strategies for promoting their mental health.

METHODS: Individual interviews with 33 people aged 16-25 years were conducted using a method inspired by cognitive interviewing, which combines think aloud techniques with probing questions. The interviews were based on the young people's reflections of the questions in the Swedish national public health survey. Data were analysed with reflexive thematic analysis.

RESULTS: The resources and strategies that the young people in this study described as important for promoting mental well-being are related to societal prerequisites needed to navigate life; to their immediate surroundings, including social interactions; and to the young people themselves. These resources and strategies are presented under the following three themes: prerequisites for navigating life, social interactions on one's own terms, and who I am and what I can do.

CONCLUSIONS: Young people have a variety of resources and strategies of their own available for promoting mental well-being. However, they cannot promote mental health just on their own; access to social networks and the opportunity to share thoughts and feelings are central. Further, to promote mental health, young people need good social conditions, knowledge, and support from adults so that the existence they struggle to navigate feels comprehensible, manageable and meaningful.

BACKGROUND: Childhood maltreatment has detrimental health consequences. Risk for economic marginalization in adulthood is less clear.

OBJECTIVE: To assess prospective associations between sexual abuse, paternal rejection and maternal rejection in childhood and indicators of economic marginalization. We also examined whether these associations were moderated by the adult women's own education and social support.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: A population-based cohort of 643 Swedish women aged 20-25 were asked to retrospectively report on childhood maltreatment. Information on economic marginalization was obtained from register follow-up until 2017.

METHODS: Cox proportional hazard regression was used to assess the associations between childhood maltreatment and incident economic marginalization, and whether these associations were modified by the women's education and social support in adulthood. Regression models were adjusted for parental characteristics and the women's contentment with life at examination.

RESULTS: Sexual abuse increased the risk of financial welfare assistance and disability pension, but no association with long-term unemployment was observed. Paternal but not maternal rejection was associated with excess risk of long-term unemployment, financial welfare assistance, and disability pension. Social support in adulthood did not moderate the associations, but associations between paternal rejection and long-term unemployment were stronger among women with university education than among women with less education.

CONCLUSIONS: This study found childhood sexual abuse and paternal rejection as risk factors for economic marginalization among adult women. Future studies should investigate the reasons for the differential impact of paternal and maternal rejection and the excess risk among highly educated women.

Schools are important arenas for mental health promotion initiatives. School nurses have the opportunity and ability to support and promote students’ mental health, but their role and practices have been perceived as somewhat unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore school nurses’ mental health promotion practices. A total of 12 scientific studies were synthesized through a meta-ethnographic approach. The overarching results of the synthesis show that school nurses’ mental health promotion practices are largely about balancing and combining the students’ needs with different professional perspectives, competencies, and conditions. The school nurses perceived that they had the power to influence their practices through a variety of ways, highlighting the importance of letting the students’ needs guide the practices. Yet, at the same time they described feelings of powerlessness because of the different organizational structures that were hindering their mental health promotion practices.

The first years of life and the family context are key to the promotion and protection of children’s health and well-being, emphasizing the need for interventions aimed to support families with young children. This review aimed to explore the effectiveness of early childhood interventions developed for promoting mental health and parenting among families with young children in the Nordic countries. Six electronic databases were systematically searched, and 20 articles covering 16 studies applying various quantitative and qualitative methods met the study inclusion criteria. The studied interventions were assessed as universal health-promoting interventions and health-promoting interventions with elements of prevention. Outcomes of interest encompassed mental health, related risk and protective factors among the parents and/or the children, or child-parent interaction. The results from studies applying statistical methods show significant improvements in parents’ self-efficacy, self-esteem, and parental satisfaction, while few improvements in parents’ social support or parental relationship were identified. Improvements in social support and parental relationships were however reported in qualitative studies. Most quantitative studies reporting on parents’ mental health problems and stress found a significant decrease, and qualitative studies highlighted experienced positive effects on mental health and well-being. The majority of studies reporting on children’s mental health and/or development as well as strengths and difficulties indicated a statistically significant positive development. No significant changes were however found for existing behaviora lproblems. The majority of studies examining parenting strategies and/or parent-child interaction found significant positive changes after the interventions. In sum, although findings are heterogeneous, early childhood interventions show various positive effects on the parenting and mental health of both children and their parents. The fact that different types of initiatives have been developed and implemented can be seen as an advantage, considering the varying needs and expectations of different families.

Background: Increasing mental health problems among young people are frequently reported. There is also a growing discussion about whether this increase reflects actual mental health problems, or if young people have more limited abilities to deal with normal challenges in life. From a social justice perspective, young people’s own thoughts and experiences need to be considered when mental health promotion among young people is addressed. 

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe young people’s experiences of promoting aspects for mental well-being.

Methods: Individual interviews were conducted with 33 youths aged 16 to 25 years. The interviews were based on the mental well-being items used in the national public health survey ‘Health at equal terms’, annually conducted by The Public Health Agency of Sweden. Qualitative content analysis was used to capture the youth´s experiences.

Findings: Preliminary findings describe promoting aspects for mental well-being as; feeling involved in social contexts, having support from loved ones, receiving help from others, feeling significant as a person, being listened to, having an inner strength, feeling that one’s life is meaningful, and reasonable expectations from oneself and those around.

Conclusion: Findings show that both internal and external aspects are important for promoting mental well-being among young people. Some aspects are beyond their control, which indicates that society needs to create prerequisites for young people to develop mental well-being.

Background: The five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) have long traditions of social welfare policies that have eradicated poverty as part of their goals. The purpose of this study was to increase our understanding of why child poverty is still significant in the Nordic countries despite existing strategies. Methods: A qualitative analysis of Nordic government documents and reports between 2007 and 2019 was carried out to track changes in public health priorities and political measures and to determine the similarities and differences between the five countries. Results: In all countries, most of the measures were universal, such as benefits during pregnancy, paid parental leave before and after the child was born, paid parental leave related to children’s sickness, child allowances, day care, free health care for children and support for disabled children. National policies aimed to reduce social inequalities and child poverty exist in all five countries, but unaffordable housing, unequal disposable family income distribution and unequal income distribution at local municipality levels seem to be obstacles to reaching national policy goals. Conclusions: Despite comprehensive universal measures to eradicate child poverty, inequalities are significant and increasing in some of the Nordic countries. This might be due to a lack of proportional universalism, where universal measures are in place in all Nordic countries, but with a lack of scale and intensity proportional to the children and families at risk. The significance of eliminating social inequalities needs to be emphasised at the local level.  

PURPOSE: One of the main tasks of a child health care nurse is to assess and promote a responsive interaction and secure connection between children and their parents for the future. This study aims to develop an understanding of Swedish child health care nurses´ experiences of assessing and promoting responsive interaction between parents and children.

DESIGN AND METHOD: A qualitative interview study using an inductive approach was implemented. Eleven nurses were interviewed (range: 30-58 min) during the period March to August 2016, and the transcripts were analysed using qualitative content analysis according to Graneheim and Lundman.

RESULTS: Three categories emerged: Interpreting signals in parent and child behaviour, Reinforcing the parents in their role and Feeling inadequate as professional. Interpreting signals in parent and child behaviour was described fundamental when promoting responsive interaction. Further reinforcing the parents in their role was described central. The child health care nurses also described how they often felt inadequate in promoting responsive interaction.

CONCLUSIONS: Assessing and promoting responsive interaction is an important but challenging task which requires extensive knowledge and good communication skills. The child health care nurses express their insufficiency in that regard.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: A targeted education and sufficient time for each visit at the child health care center should be allocated to facilitate the important work on parenting and child interaction and to enhance nurses' feelings of managing their work.

Som generation beskrivs dagens unga värdera sociala relationer högre och prioritera välbefinnande och lycka jämfört med tidigare generationer (1). De anses vara öppnare och mer toleranta men också mindre optimistiska då de i stor utsträckning har upplevt negativa världshändelser (2,3). Att ha en positiv syn på framtiden är en viktig aspekt av välbefinnande, men vad innebär positiv syn på framtiden för dagens unga och vad behöver de för att kunna ha en positiv syn på framtiden?

Metod

I detta projekt presenteras delar av resultaten från en större studie med syfte att undersöka ungas uppfattningar om psykiska besvär och psykiskt välbefinnande. Individuella intervjuer genomfördes med 33 personer mellan 16 och 25 år och analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys (4,5).

Resultat

Framtid tolkades av de unga som alltifrån det stundande sommarlovet till det som händer om flera år. De relaterade positiv syn på framtiden till en variation av erfarenheter så som: att känna tilltro; inneboende optimism och livslust; att ha mål att sträva mot; och saker utanför den egna makten. Möjligheten att forma framtiden själv och inte styras för mycket av andras förväntningar och krav upplevdes viktigt för att kunna ha en positiv syn på framtiden.

From a salutogenic perspective, relational and reflective competencies are key to the success of competence building. Reflecting on and exploring one’s (life) experience in a continuous learning process can enhance salutogenic competence.

This chapter, whose authors have many years of experience building health professionals’ salutogenic competence, is nicely illustrated with teaching and coaching examples drawn from (a) a master’s programme for students in various health professions, (b) salutogenic talk-therapy groups, (c) students in health promotion training programmes, and (d) on-the-job training of healthcare professionals working in childcare services.

The chapter discusses the concept of “self-tuning,” referring to habitual self-sensitivity, reflection, and mobilising of resources, which can play a central role in all types of training. This chapter emphasises that trainers should strive to “live the talk,” developing their personal salutogenic capacity – in other words, do what you teach and be what you teach.

This study explores and analyzes how adult women in Sweden exposed to childhood maltreatment describe wellbeing, by using a thematic analysis of 22 semi-structured interviews with women maltreated as children. The results show that wellbeing was described as relative to both social norms and the childhood experiences and constituted four dimensions: Material and/or economic; Social and relational;Emotional; and Physical and/or mental. This study concludes that it is important to consider the relative and multiple ways wellbeing can be experienced and understood and to problematize norms of wellbeing, acknowledging the various ways people appraise their lives.