The goals of my research are to improve the quality of health care for severely ill and dying patients and to improve support for their family members.
Research areas
In recent years, my research has primarily focused on the areas in the projects and studies set out below.
Sense of security during palliative care
In previous studies of what patients and those close to them feel is important in palliative care, a feeling of security has been a recurrent answer. Thus, in this project, we have delved deeper into what contributes to a sense of security for patients and those close to them. We have also developed two instruments for measuring the feeling of security during palliative care. These tools are SEC-P (for patients) and SEC-R (for relations and others close to the patient).
Cross-cultural interactions during palliative care
Sweden is a multicultural society. Health care has to meet the needs of severely ill people and those close to them, whatever their cultural backgrounds. The goal of this study is to explore health care professionals’ understandings of cross-cultural interaction during end-of-life care.
Symptoms and symptom relief for patients in a palliative disease phase
Patients nearing the ends of their lives often have many symptoms at the same time. There are gaps in the knowledge regarding the presentation of these symptoms, what causes them and what health care can do to prevent and relieve them. This project is aimed at studying: whether the incidence of symptoms differs in patients depending on where care is provided; if there is a connection between inflammatory signal substances (cytokines) and symptoms; if specific measures can relieve/prevent constipation or anxiety; and, care professionals’ perceptions of how communication can reduce/prevent symptoms in patients whose condition is worsening. Various types of studies will be involved. They include a registry study, two studies focusing respectively on patients and care professionals and two studies testing interventions to reduce symptoms.
I am also assisting in the following research projects: palliative care in emergency departments; subsyndromal depression in very old persons; and, interpretation and assessment of levels of common biomedical markers in older persons.
Teaching
I teach palliative care and ethics to medical students . I am also the chair of one of the subject groups, LERN (life cycle, endocrinology, reproduction and neoplasia), at the medical education at Linköping university. I additionally give palliative care and ethics teaching for specialty registrars in specialty training courses (“ST courses”).
