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Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a condition diagnosed in 5% of children and adolescents. This neurodevelopmental condition causes impaired academic, social, and occupational functioning. Adolescents with ADHD symptoms have lower health-related quality of life and children with ADHD have been described as having difficulties forming positive friendships. Therefore, the aim was to describe how 15–17-year-old adolescents with ADHD experience friendship with peers. A semi-structured interview study was conducted with twelve adolescents about their experiences of friendships. The adolescents were recruited from a Swedish psychiatry clinic. A qualitative content analysis was used. In the results, three main categories were constructed: "Bonding with Friends" underscores the importance of understanding, shared interests, and adaptability. The "One’s own role" category emphasises the dynamic interplay of self-perception and interpersonal behaviours in interaction with friends. The "How Friendship Matters" category describes the complex nature of friendships, involving both support and conflicts. The adolescents’ relationships improved with age, influenced by self-awareness, ADHD medication and support from adults. In conclusion, friendships play a crucial role in the well-being of the participants, providing vital support when navigating ADHD associated challenges. It is essential that the adolescents themselves, but also adults and healthcare providers, recognise and address their impulsivity issues and need for daily planning. We should assist adolescents in developing effective interaction strategies with friends. The study highlights the significance of friendships and peer support for the adolescents’ health and functioning., CC-BY 4.0This work was supported by Ekhagastiftelsen (2020-16 to ACR), Majblommans Riksförbund (27 to ACR),Ebba Danelius Stiftelse (to ACR), and Fonden för rehabilitering och medicinsk forskning (FRF)-Foundation (to ACR)

Pain and fear associated with needle procedures have been found to be more common among children and adolescents treated for type 1 diabetes (T1D) than among others in their age group. Furthermore, high glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) values are associated with needle-related fear. Aim: To describe negative experiences of needle procedures in childhood diabetes treatment from children's and adolescents' own perspectives. Methods: Short written narratives (n = 83) and drawings (n = 2) from children and adolescents treated for T1D, aged 7–18 years, were subjected to inductive qualitative content analysis. Results: Negative experiences with needle procedures had many facets, such as pain and fear, changing over time and affecting everyday life. All kinds of needle procedures caused difficulties, but venipunctures were described as the worst. Conclusion: All needle procedures involved in diabetes treatment are potentially experienced as creating pain and fear, but the negative experiences are multifaceted and vary between individuals. These experiences create suffering for children and adolescents, and influence their daily lives. Besides finding techniques to decrease the number of needle procedures in the treatment, research should focus on implementing methods to decrease pain, fear, and other negative experiences as well as to promote self-coping. This is urgent, since needle-related fear has an impact on glycaemic control and therefore increases the risk of long-term complications. Clinical Implications: When caring for children and adolescents with diabetes, their previous experiences with needle procedures need to be considered.

Aim: The aim of the study was to qualitatively investigate the adolescents’ need for professional support when a parent has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)–from the adolescents’ and the parents’ perspectives. Methods: A total of 37 individual semi-structured single interviews with 18 families were conducted, including 11 adolescents aged 8-25 and 26 parents, 13 with ALS and 13 co-parents. Data was analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results: Both adolescents and parents described the adolescents as needing professional support but found it difficult to articulate this need. However, the results indicate that the adolescents needed help in bringing manageability into their lives due to the uncertainty of living with the illness in the family. It was therefore essential to ensure that the adolescents were not forgotten in the disease context and that their needs for being involved as well as for obtaining information and understanding, was addressed. The importance of offering the adolescents support early was emphasized, but also of actively helping the families to master challenges in their everyday life. Support adapted to each family’s unique situation and preferences was desired, as the adolescents’ need for support seemed to be individual, disease-dependent and varied during different phases. Conclusion: Given the adolescents’ need for information and understanding, healthcare professionals must actively work to reach the adolescents as early as possible. It is crucial to ensure that the adolescents are given the opportunity to be involved based on their own conditions, as well as to support the families to strengthen their communication.

When work integrated education (WIE) is discussed, the archetypal examples of supervised placements for medical, nursing, physiotherapy, and teacher education students are usually referenced. They comprise students engaging in authentic work activities and interactions, closely supervised by qualified and more experienced practitioners. Ideally, those supervisors identify and select students’ work activities and support and guide their engagement and learning. These arrangements often arise from long-standing occupational traditions of care and responsibility towards patients and students and have legislated arrangements demanding such supervision. However, for many occupations such traditions do not exist and, where they exist, placements are less structured. Moreover, the ability to provide placements are restricted by the size of the enterprise, the work undertaken and/or the number of students seeking these experiences. One deputy vice chancellor quipped “how can I provide supervised placements for 1500 undergraduate business students each semester?”. A good question. So, in seeking to provide WIE experiences across all occupational fields, it is not possible for many of the courses in which our students are enrolled. The educational challenge is, therefore, to identify how these students can come to experience, engage, and develop occupational understandings, procedures and dispositions (i.e., to think and act like practitioners). Hence, we need to find alternatives to provide these experiences. In the response to the quip above, it was suggested, for instance, that most undergraduate students engage in paid part-time work that provide experiences to assist understand many aspects of business practices. That is, processes of recruitment, supervision, customer interaction, stock provisions and organisation, financial processes and supervision. Engaging students in sharing, comparing and critiquing these work experiences, can secure insights from peers’ experienc

This paper discusses the challenges and opportunities of applying a Work-integrated learning (WIL) perspective to distance learning programs in higher education. More specifically, it disseminates the Work-integrated education (WIE) elements incorporated in the 2-year program ”Webmaster” at University West, Sweden, with about 100 students each year. The program consists of two main themes, web programming and graphic- and user experience (UX) design, respectively. A majority of the students live in Sweden, but about 10 percent live abroad. With so many students dispersed around the world, more traditional placement-based WIE activities, such as internships, are challenging to accommodate. Other challenges are that the students are in different stages of life, often having to balance work, family, and study commitments (cf. Dean et al., 2020; Dean & Campbell, 2020). Another factor to consider when implementing WIE activities is that for these students, placement-based WIL is not necessarily preparing them for a future in the web industry. While more traditional work settings are common, more novel forms of work, such as work-from-home, nomadic work practices, and gig-based work, are increasingly common. Hence, a traditional placement-based WIE activity would not suffice to prepare students for work in the industry. So, given the heterogenic nature of the student group regarding their demographics, their purpose and ambitions, physical location and uncertain future work contexts, taking in a WIL perspective is challenging at the same time as it is presenting us with the opportunity to explore alternative non-placement forms of WIL. In this paper we explore the students’ attitudes towards and impressions of the implementation of three forms of non-placement WIL:i) ”WIL glimpses” features a series of curated (by the lecturer) resources already freely and readily available on the internet, in which people in the industry share glimpses from their workdays,ii) ”follow