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Professional construct reality as part of shaping their understanding of events, so that the event can be seen as part of their institutional conditions. This can be applied to judges, who possess their own inferential frameworks which they use to account for their legal decisions. Judges tend to emphasise only some parts of accessble data when they explain verdicts. Children's credibility is important in cases of alleged child abuse heard in Sweden. Judges are seeking accounts from children that are clear and concise. Children may not know how their performances are interpreted when they give evidence in courts.

To learn about children's ability to estimate the duration of an event many days after it occurred, 6–12-year-old children were asked to judge the amount of time (range 5–45 minutes) they spent in the treatment room as part of a paediatric visit. Judgements were made 1 week or 1 month after the visit occurred. Children showed an average error of about 13 minutes. Retention interval did not significantly affect estimates. Other judgements of the length of the interview itself (mean length 8 minutes) provided what may be the first data on children's ability to make immediate retrospective duration estimates. The results also include information about children's capacity to judge how long ago they visited the clinic. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives. This study will illustrate how stroke survivors, their relatives and different professionals communicated in care-planning meetings when planning care for patients after their discharge from hospital. We wanted to know what topics participants were talking about, to what extent they were involved in the discussion and how the communication was organized. Background. Communication in health care is sometimes problematic because of the participants’ asymmetrical positions when negotiating how to understand the patients’ future care. Methods. A qualitative and a quantitative design were adopted with a sample of 14 authentic audio-recorded care-planning meetings. The transcribed meetings were, together with observational notes, analysed from a data-driven approach. Findings. Five topics emerged. The professionals tended to dominate the discourse space even if their involvement varied depending on the topic talked about. The most noteworthy finding was the patients’ need of communicative alliances with other participants when negotiating their needs and desires of further care. When making decisions two approaches emerged. The ‘aim-driven’ approach was characterized by alliances between those participants who seemed to share a common goal for the patient's further care. When the participants used the ‘open-minded’ approach they merged information and discussed different solutions leading to a goal step by step. Conclusions. The importance of strengthening stroke survivors’ participation in care-planning meetings is highlighted. Professionals have to increase their knowledge about how to involve the patients as well as their awareness of how to avoid power struggles between various professionals, patients and relatives. Relevance to clinical practice. This study shows the necessity for professionals to involve relatives when negotiating these patients’ need of further care and to learn more about how to advocate stroke survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Background: Previous research has suggested technology may dehumanise patient care and also that technology may restrict nurses’ freedom of action. This raises questions about the relationship between technology, care and medicine in units where the patient''s need for treatment is often an emergency. Aim: The aim of the study was to explore how staff members in an intensive care unit (ICU) make sense of technology in their everyday practice. Method: Twelve staff members from one ICU were interviewed about their understanding of technology in their everyday practice. Result: Three main findings emerged from the analysis: Technology seems to be considered decisive as it directs and controls medical treatment and results in the patients’ well being; technology is seen as facilitating everyday practice because it makes treatment more secure and decreases workload; however technology can complicate the staff members’ everyday practice as it is not completely trustworthy, is not easy to handle and can cause ethical dilemmas. Conclusion: Contrary to previous findings this study shows that technology seems to be embedded in care and medical treatment. Furthermore, the meaning of technology appears to be dependent on the different staff members’ accounting practices. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]