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An increasing number of older people with severe mental illness (SMI) poses additional challenges to healthcare and social services. This scoping review aimed to investigate the life situation of older people living with severe mental illness and identify the research gaps in the existing literature. The current review followed the methodological framework for conducting scoping reviews by Arksey and O'Malley, consisting of five main stages: (1) identifying the research question (2) identifying relevant studies, (3) selecting the studies, (4) charting the data, and (5) collating, summarising, and reporting the results. An optional sixth stage, a consultation exercise, has also been used in this study: The scoping review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA extension for scoping reviews PRISMA-ScR, and the databases PsychINFO Scopus, Cinahl, Web of Science and PubMed were used. A total of 24 studies were included in the review. The thematic analysis focused on: (1) the perspective of older people with SMI, (2) the perspective of healthcare professionals supporting older people with SMI, and (3) the perspective of informal carers supporting older people with SMI. The results describe the life situation of older people living with SMI, especially in relation to the older peoples' experiences of suffering and well-being. The staff and the informal carers need adequate knowledge to provide support to the older people with SMI. To gain greater knowledge about the life situation and support needed by older people with SMI, we strongly advocate additional research focusing on their own experiences., Innovatedignity - European Unions H2020- MSCA-ITN-2018 programme 813928

Introduction and Aim: There is limited scientific knowledge about older people with severe mental illness and the support they receive in municipal housing and home care. Greater knowledge of their life situation can contribute to the development of support and care interventions for the target group. The aim was to describe how older people with severe mental illness experience their life situation and the support they receive in their daily lives in ordinary housing or care homes. Method and Results: The project is a part of an EU project “Innovatedignity” focusing on sustainable and dignified care for older people. Thirteen lifeworld interviews were conducted with older people (11 women and 2 men), between 65 to 81 years of age, with severe mental illness who receive support and care from municipal care staff in their own home or in special housing in the municipality. The interviews were conducted in the older people’s homes, lasting between 40 to 60 minutes. The interviews were characterized by openness and flexibility towards the phenomenon of the study “the life situation and support in everyday life and in the home”. The opening questions were: “Can you tell me about a usual day in your life?” and “How do you experience the support you receive from municipal care staff in your everyday life and in your home?” The data was analyzed with a phenomenological meaning analysis based on a Reflective Lifeworld Research (RLR) approach.All of the older people with severe mental illness had experiences of being treated or cared for in mental hospitals or psychiatric care homes earlier in their lives. Preliminary findings indicate that their everyday life was characterized by routines, such as eating, receiving help with cleaning and personal hygiene, and going for walks, watching television, or smoking. The older people in special housing talk of there being some members of staff who they feel they can trust and who they feel understand them, but they have little conta

Background: Digital technologies facilitate everyday life, social connectedness, aging at home, well-being, and dignified care. However, older adults are disproportionately excluded from these benefits. Equal digital opportunities, access, and meaningful engagement require an understanding of older adults’ experience across different stages of the technological engagement life cycle from nonuse and initial adoption to sustained use, factors influencing their decisions, and how the experience changes over time. Objective: Our objectives were to identify the extent and breadth of existing literature on older adults’ perspective on digital engagement and summarize the barriers to and facilitators for technological nonuse, initial adoption, and sustained digital technology engagement. Methods: We used the Arksey and O’Malley framework for the scoping review process. We searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Web of Science, and ACM digital library for primary studies published between 2005 and 2021. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were developed based on the Joanna Briggs Institute (participants, content, and context) framework. Studies that investigated the digital engagement experience as well as barriers to and facilitators of older adults’ digital technology engagement were included. The characteristics of the study, types of digital technology, and digital engagement levels were analyzed descriptively. Content analysis was used to generate tentative elements using a congruent theme, and barriers and facilitators were mapped over the capability, opportunity, and motivation behavior change model (COM-B) and the theoretical domain framework. The findings were reported in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews). Results: In total, 96 publications were eligible for the final charting and synthesis. Most of the studies were published over the past 5 years, investigated the initial

Our general purpose is to show how a philosophically oriented theoretical foundation, drawn from a lifeworld perspective can serve as a coherent direction for caring practices in education. We argue that both caring and learning share the same ontological foundation and point to this intertwining from a philosophical perspective. We proceed by illustrating shared epistemological ground through some novel educational practices in the professional preparation of carers. Beginning in a phenomenologically oriented philosophical foundation, we will first unfold what this means in the practice of caring, and secondly what it means for education and learning to care in humanly sensitive ways. We then share some ways that may be valuable in supporting learning and health that provides a basis for an existential understanding. We argue that existential understanding may offer a way to bridge the categorisations in contemporary health care that flow from problematic dualisms such as mind and body, illness and well-being, theory and practice, caring and learning. Ways of overcoming such dualistic splits and new existential understandings are needed to pave the way for a care that is up to the task of responding to both human possibilities and vulnerabilities, within the complexity of existence. As such, we argue that caring and learning are to be understood as an intertwined phenomenon of pivotal importance in education of both sensible and sensitive carers. Lifeworld led didactics and reflection, which are seen as the core of learning, constitute an important educational strategy here.

Background: A Developing and Learning Care Unit (DLCU) is a model used in the clinical practice of student nurses that aims at bridging the gap between theory and praxis, by supporting nursing students’ learning through supervision in pairs. The aim of this study is to describe how patients experience being cared for by pairs of student nurses. Methods: The study is based on a reflective lifeworld research (RLR) approach founded on phenomenological traditions. Data was collected in lifeworld interviews of 17 patients cared for by pairs of student nurses. The data was explored and analysed for meaning. Results: To be cared for by student nurses, supervised in pairs entails being involved in the students’ learning and being met with responsibility and a willingness to care and learn. This means being made the centre of attention, being seen, taken seriously and being listened to as a valuable human being. The students’ care is shown to be more flexible and has a more open approach, in comparison to that of the ordinary staff, and they ‘do something extraordinary’ and give of their time. Conclusions: Pairs of students, who are supervised within a learning model that support students’ learning through reflection, can contribute to patient experiences of being given good care.

The Verbal and Social Interaction Nursing Students questionnaire (VSI-NS) has been created to measure the development ofverbal, social and interactional skills of nursing students with patients, from their perspective in nursing care. The aim of thepresent study was to determine the construct validity and internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire. The study had amethodological and developmental design and was carried out in four steps: adjustment of the items, face validity, data collectionand data analysis. The number of items was reduced from 48 to 31. The factor analysis of the final 31 items resulted in four quitedistinct factors: “Inviting to talk about feelings and thoughts”, “Building a caring relationship”, “Encouraging social and practicalaspects in daily life” and “Caring towards health and wellbeing”. The results showed satisfactory psychometric properties interms of content validity, construct validity and the internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire. It could be concluded thatthe original conceptual model could serve as a theoretical foundation to explain and understand nurses’ caring interactions withtheir patients, Open access

A Developing and Learning Care Unit is a learning environment in clinical practice designed to integrate theory and practice by using lifeworld didactics in order to support pairs of students in their professional development. Lifeworld didactics is based on a lifeworld led learning approach, which focuses on each student’s experiences and knowledge and supports each individual student and the students as a pair. The aim of this study is to explain and create an understanding of the phenomenon “learning space” that occurs in the interaction between patient, pairs of students and supervisors, during clinical practice. This hermeneutic study is based on a Reflective Lifeworld Research approach. The analysis is based on observations and interviews with patients, pairs of student nurses and supervisors at Developing and Learning Care Units. The result shows that the patient, pairs of students and supervisors are placed in the learning space, and are therefore related to each other. The relationships that arise in the learning space are enhanced through responsibility and the respect shown to each other. A relationship that appears to be supportive is characterized by: thoughtfulness, understanding of each other and enabling to ask questions. This creates an interplay of dynamic movements that are directed toward a common goal and thus provide opportunities to give and receive support. A balance between the patient, pairs of students and supervisor should thus be recognized to facilitate a favorable learning environment.

Wellbeing has many forms and can be expressed in many different ways. Earlier research has shown that using films in nursing education can support the learning of caring science, and bring a touching context for the students that can be related to nursing practice. This presentation focus on how wellbeing and suffering are expressed in the film Once by John Camey and how this can be understood in relation to caring and the support of health processes. In addition, it is of importance to educate both sensible and sensitive nurses, and we suggest that different kinds of learning strategies such as using films that touch upon existential aspects. By relating the film to the students' experiences, caring science concepts and philosophy, the understanding of human existence can be expanded and deepened. In this particular presentation we use the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty to clarify how intersubjectivity points both to the individuality and individual expression, and at the same time to the in-between and co-existence through music and singing together. Vignettes from the film are analysed in order to provide a deepened understanding of how music and singing can contribute to wellbeing and health processes.

The aim of this study was to describe how supervisors’ support nursing students learning in pairs, during their clinical practice. The research is based on a Reflective Lifeworld Research approach founded in phenomenology. The analysis is based on seven individual interviews with head supervisors and four group interviews with base supervisors at Developing and Learning Care Units. There is a total of eleven Developing and Care Units in both somatic and psychiatric care. This learning environment is designed to integrate theory and practice through lifeworld didactics in order to support pairs of students in their professional development. The results show that supporting students’ learning in pairs is based on interpersonal meetings and entails focusing on learning in pairs, where both each individual student and the pair of students as a unit are given space. Being the ultimate support for students’ learning is a major challenge that requires flexibility towards the pair of students. Supporting students’ learning is also characterized by being present for the students with a reflective supervising approach, at the same time as supporting means to take a step back in relation to not be too prominent. The learning support, which is characterized by structure and reflection, is also challenged by the competing “reality of the nursing situation”, which is shown in a balancing act between the demands of the “reality of the nursing situation” and the space needed for reflective learning.

Nursing students need support in order to be able to intertwine caring science theory with practice through reflection. In this theoretical paper a nursing student-run health clinic based on lifeworld led learning and caring is described and propounded as providing such support. The student nurses are offered possibilities for integrating theoretical and practical knowledge by the re-location of parts of the theoretical courses to this innovative learning environment. In applying a phenomenological attitude, both in the learning situation and in the caring situation, the natural (unreflective) attitude is challenged in order for the student nurses to gain a deeper and broader understanding of caring science within their caring practice and vice versa. This means that the nursing students can develop a reflective caring approach that is important in order to become both sensitive and sensible nurses. This paper can be supportive for nurse educators in developing nursing education to meet the needs of the modern society. Our perspective on health, well-being and reflective learning can also inspire persons who work in clinical practice and with health promotion.

To support care for patients in an adequate way, Caring science theory and nursing practice need to be intertwined to bridge problematic dualisms such as mind and body, sense and sensibility, theory and practice, learning and caring. The overall aim in caring is to support wellbeing and to strengthen health and how this is achieved has been discussed extensively. However ways of overcoming such dualistic understandings are needed to pave the way for a care that is up to the task of responding to human possibilities and vulnerabilities within the complexity of existence. In supporting patients, we argue that a range of aspects, inter-relational, intellectual, emotional and embodied need to be evoked and reflected upon by students as a beginning foundation for the incorporation of, and the intertwining of Caring science theory and practice. This intertwining draws on knowledge for ‘the head’, ‘the heart’, ‘the hand’ (Galvin & Todres, 2013) and can develop and support a particular sensibility and sensitivity both of which are needed within clinical and learning contexts. In this presentation we will show the importance of a solid theoretical foundation drawn from Husserl’s lifeworld theory and theory of intentionality, Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy concerning how everything is intertwined in existence, as well as Gadamer’s ideas about shared understandings and Gendlin’s work on embodied relational understanding. While we have drawn from all these phenomenological perspectives, we will show how they serve as a coherent direction for overcoming the dualistic consequences of ‘splits’ such as, between human and world, illness and well-being , caring and technology, learning and caring, youth and old age, life and death and so on (Dahlberg et al., 2009). Such existential ways of understanding and well considered ‘didactic tools’ are needed to support this concern. We will share a number of illustrations from the lifeworld led care and education theme within EACS to c

Caring science with a foundation in “the lived experience” may be viewed as a “patient science” i.e. the nursing has its starting point in the patient’s perspective. To support the students to learn caring science, the learning situation has to embrace the students’ lived experience in relation to the substance of caring science. One of the challenges in education is how to make the theoretical meanings more vivid, when there are no patients present. To obtain lived experiences as a foundation for teaching, written patient narratives and fiction like novels in combination with scientific literature are often used. Questions about how film can be used in this context to support learning of caring science have recently emerged. The aim of this study was to describe how film as learning-support may boost reflection in learning caring science. The data was collected through audio-taped seminars, written reflections and group-interviews with students on basic-, advanced-, and doctoral levels. The analysis was based on the Reflective Lifeworld Research (RLR) approach, founded on phenomenology. The result shows how film as a learning-support enhances the understanding of the caring science theory, and gives a deeper understanding of the subject. Film can be very touching and supportive for the students’ embodied reflections. Hence, it is important that the students are encouraged to watch the film from a caring science perspective and this requires a structure for learning-support related to the film, such as focus and purposes of watching the film, as well as support for follow-ups. The film per se does not create such support and guidance, but must be combined with well considered pedagogic thoughts on what learning is and how learning can be supported. The result is highlighted with the help of Maurice Merleau-Pontys philosophy of “the lived body”, and “the flesh of the world”.

This thesis explores the phenomenon of touch and describes its meaning in the healthcare context. Caring science theory based on a lifeworld approach forms the theoretical perspective of the dissertation and consequently the patient perspective is guiding the research. The ontological, epistemological and methodological framework of the thesis is phenomenology. The overall aim was to describe the phenomenon of touch in the healthcare context. Touch showed to be a phenomenon with several diverse aspects being differentially explicit in different contexts. Four empirical studies were therefore conducted in different contexts. Further, a synthesis of the empirical results was carried out to show the invariant meanings and structure of the phenomenon. Furthermore, a philosophical illumination of the results was carried out to further deepen and expand the understanding of touch related to healthcare. The phenomenon of touch is described as a complex caring movement, as an interplay between lived bodies forming a foundation to understand health, suffering, well-being, and care. The results show how touch has the power to both alleviate the patients’ suffering and to experience joy and deep connectedness, as well as how touch can frighten and cause or worsen suffering. In order to take advantage of the caring potential, the person who touches must be fully present in all senses of the word. Caring touch of different kinds can never be reduced to a “method”. It is much more than a mechanical and static act or a treatment. Moreover, touch that is objectifying may be understood as an obstacle or detrimental for the caring relationship and well-being since it lacks the necessary pliable interpersonal room. Such touch creates distance and alienation rather than closeness, trust and togetherness. If the potential of touch for caring is to be used and the threat of non-caring warded off, then the intentionality of touch must be balanced visavi the existential vulnerability of th

This article describes how caring science can be a helpful foundation for caring practice and what kind of learning supportthat can enable the transformation of caring science into practice. The lifeworld approach is fundamental for both caringand learning. This will be illustrated in two examples from research that show the potential for promoting health and wellbeingas well as the learning process. One example is from a caring context and the other is from a learning context. In thisarticle, learning and caring are understood as parallel processes. We emphasize that learning cannot be separated from lifeand thus caring and education is intertwined with caring science and life. The examples illustrate how an understanding ofthe intertwining can be fruitful in different contexts. The challenge is to implant a lifeworld-based approach on caring andlearning that can lead to strategies that in a more profound way have the potential to strengthen the person’s health andlearning processes.