Search

Summary: An interview study was conducted with persons receiving home care services and personal assistance in Sweden (13 individuals, 25 interviews) with the aim to analyze their experiences of managing personal and intimate care. The analytical approach was guided by phenomenologically informed research and Erving Goffman's theoretical work on self-presentation and social life as it differs in frontstage and backstage settings. Findings: A reflected approach to the complex challenges associated with becoming and being a person in need of personal and intimate care was revealed. This involved continuous adaptations and attuning to organizational and relational conditions of formal home care. Being a recipient of personal and intimate care does not mean being passive. It entails relating to and sustaining the care relation, where even choosing to accept suboptimal conditions is an act of agency. The recipients' private homes were hybridized, transformed both into a waiting room, with the recipient on standby and into a workplace. The homes thus partly lost their character as a backstage realm where one could avoid the gaze of others. This also led to a hybridization of the personal sphere, in the form of marginal scope for true privacy, necessitating strategies for protecting one's own space. Applications: It is important both to acknowledge the intrusive nature of personal and intimate care, which results in extensive hybridization of the home and personal sphere and to recognize care recipients' agency in the relationship that care establishes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Public trust towards social workers is essential for legitimacy and accessibility of the social services, as well as for help-seeking behaviour. However, research on public trust towards the social services is lacking. The aim of this study was to describe the extent to which Swedish citizens trust social workers who work within the social services, and to explore patterns in level of trust based on demographic factors and history of service use. The analysis draws on survey data from 2010, 2014, and 2018 (total n = 4975). Logistic regressions were conducted to assess associations between predictor variables and trust. Findings: On average, 40 percent of the general public reported a high level of trust regardless of year. Approximately 20 percent reported a low level of trust. The results indicate a slight decrease in trust between 2010 and 2014 but not between 2014 and 2018. No gender or age differences were identified. Low income level, being related to a service user, and low level of education were all associated with low level of trust. Applications: Our findings provide new insights regarding variations in levels of trust in the general population. Economically and educationally disadvantaged groups as well as those related to a service user are more likely to report low trust than their more advantaged counterparts. To strengthen legitimacy and accessibility, these groups should be prioritised in trust-enhancing efforts. Still, reports of high trust were predominant, indicating that social workers are generally perceived as trusted providers of social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]