Homelessness is associated with high risks of morbidity and premature death. Many interventions aimed to improve physical and mental health exist, but do not reach the population of persons experiencing homelessness. Despite the widely reported unmet healthcare needs, more information about the barriers and facilitators that affect access to care for persons experiencing homelessness is needed. A systematic integrative review was performed to explore experiences and needs of health‐ and social care for persons experiencing homelessness. The following databases were searched: AMED, ASSIA, Academic Search Complete, CINAHL, Cochrane library, Nursing and Allied Database, PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science Core Collection. Twenty‐two studies met the inclusion criteria of empirical studies with adult persons experiencing homelessness, English language, and published 2008‐2018. Fifty percent of the studies were of qualitative and quantitative design, respectively. Most studies (73%) were conducted in the United States (n=11) and Canada (n=5). The analysis resulted in three themes Unmet basic human needs, Interpersonal dimensions of access to care, and Structural and organizational aspects to meet needs. The findings highlight that persons in homelessness often must prioritize provision for basic human needs, such as finding shelter and food, over getting health‐ and social care. Bureaucracy and rigid opening hours, as well as discrimination and stigma, hinder these persons’ access to health‐ and social care.

Background.: Valuable trauma-related research may be hindered when the risks of asking participants about traumatic events are not carefully weighed against the benefits of their participation in the research.Method.: The overall aim of our population-based survey was to improve the professional care of suicide-bereaved parents by identifying aspects of care that would be amenable to change. The study population included 666 suicide-bereaved and 377 matched (2:1) non-bereaved parents. In this article we describe the parents' perceptions of their contacts with us as well as their participation in the survey. We also present our ethical-protocol for epidemiological surveys in the aftermath of a traumatic loss.Results.: We were able to contact 1410 of the 1423 eligible parents; eight of these parents expressed resentment towards the contact. Several participants and non-participants described their psychological suffering and received help because of the contact. A total of 666 suicide-bereaved and 377 non-bereaved parents returned the questionnaire. Just two out of the 1043 answered that they might, in the long term, be negatively affected by participation in the study; one was bereaved, the other was not. A significant minority of the parents reported being temporarily negatively affected at the end of their participation, most of them referring to feelings of sadness and painful memories. In parallel, positive experiences were widely expressed and most parents found the study valuable.Conclusions.: Our findings suggest, given that the study design is ethically sound, that suicide-bereaved parents should be included in research since the benefits clearly outweigh the risks.

There is a need for evidence-based guidelines on how professionals should act following a suicide. In an effort to provide empiric knowledge, we designed a nationwide population-based study including suicide-bereaved parents. To describe the process from creating hypotheses through interviews to the development of a population-based questionnaire. We used interviews, qualitative analysis and various means of validation to create a study-specific questionnaire to be used in a nonselected nationwide population of suicide-bereaved parents and a control population of nonbereaved (N = 2:1). The Swedish Register of Causes of Death and the Multigeneration Register were used to identify eligible individuals. All presumptive participants received a letter of invitation followed by a personal contact. We developed a questionnaire covering the participants' perception of participation, their daily living, psychological morbidity, professional actions, and other experiences in immediate connection to the time before and after the suicide. Almost three out of four parents (bereaved = 666, nonbereaved = 377) responded to the questionnaire. By involving parents early in the research process we were able to create a questionnaire that generated a high participation rate in a nationwide population-based study that might help us to answer our hypotheses about bereavement after suicide.

Purpose: Emotional instability and self-harm pose major problems for society and health care. There are effective interventions in outpatient care, but when patients need inpatient care, nurses often struggle meeting their patient’s needs. Brief admission (BA) is a newly implemented crisis intervention and novel form of inpatient care. The aim of this study is to describe nurses’ experiences working with BA related to patients with emotional instability and self-harm. Methods: Eight nurses were interviewed according to a semi-structured interview guide. The data was analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results: Four main categories emerged regarding nurses’ experiences with BA: provides security and continuity, fosters caring relationships, shifts focus towards patient’s health and empowers the patient. The nurse’s role shifted from “handling problems” to establishing caring relationships with a focus on the person’s health and possibilities for recovering instead of psychiatric symptoms. Conclusions: Previous studies on patients’ perspective of BA describe positive experiences such as increased autonomy and participation in the healthcare process. This study supports those findings, albeit from the perspective of nurses. Our findings suggest that BA may reduce work-related stress experienced by nurses while caring for persons with emotional instability and self-harm. BA may also support nurses in their ability to provide more meaningful and constructive psychiatric inpatient care.

The authors investigated suicide-bereaved siblings’ reported reasons for seeking or not seeking professional support, their reported satisfaction when receiving it, and their recommendations to health services when meeting suicide-bereaved siblings. Using qualitative content analysis of 18 interviews with suicide-bereaved siblings, the authors found that the perception of health services as being helpful was influenced by both the participants’ and by the deceased siblings’ experiences with health services. They conclude that the bereaved sibling's and the deceased sibling's unmet needs may generate negative attitudes toward health services, which reduces the likelihood of seeking professional help as well as medication acceptance in some cases.