Toward better births? Political discourses of maternity care in birth practices in Denmark and France.

Internationally, politicians and practitioners have focused strongly on humanization of births, to enable fewer medicalized birth care procedures. In this paper, we explore policy efforts to support better births in order to comprehend developments in maternity care in Denmark and France, two countries previously identified as having different birth cultures. Our analysis has been fueled by the question of how birth policies have developed in both countries in an era in which medicalization of birth has been problematized internationally. Using discourse analysis, we examine the political constructions of specific problems in central policy documents. The analysis shows which problematizations around maternity care are discursively constructed, what solutions are discursively presented and on what assumptions the problematizations are based. The article supports the conclusion of other scholars that a pervading risk discourse on birth and birthing bodies constitutes how maternity care can be experienced and practiced.

Health promotion in context: A reflective-analytical model.

Health promotion constitutes a complex field of study, as it addresses multifaceted problems and involves a range of methods and theories. Students in the field of health promotion can find this challenging. To raise their level of reflexivity and support learning we have developed the "context model," which is presented in this article. The model provides a framework for the analysis of health-promotion initiatives, employing eight perspectives each intertwined with the others. It is based on the assumption that health and health inequities are contextual and that the theoretically inspired understanding of contexts is central for health promoters. Contexts for health are seen as more than the local setting; they are embedded in societal and global conditions-which, vice versa, influence the local setting. A Danish community health project is used to exemplify how the model can be used in relation to educational purposes.

Patient-centeredness in Physiotherapy - A literature mapping review.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Research on patient-centeredness within physiotherapy points to a need for clarification about what the concept entails in science and practice and how research positions itself within health care. Thus, the aim is to systematically map the characteristics of research on patient-centeredness in physiotherapy and critically discuss the dominant understandings within. METHODS: A systematic research mapping was carried out, based on searches in leading bibliographic databases. Four categories were selected in order to characterize the research field: focus, design, theoretical approach and inherent logic. FINDINGS: Of 5,324 studies, 101 were included in the final mapping, pointing to a limited amount of research. The papers included were published in 47 different journals. Two major research foci emerges: one testing or developing technologies (tools) to promote patient-centeredness and one exploring patients' or professionals' experiences related to physiotherapy practice. Most papers reported on empirical research and there seems to be a dearth of conceptual papers. The theoretical approaches applied were mainly psychological, pedagogical and biomedical. The papers included were divided into equal amounts of studies carried out within inherent logics of causality and complexity. CONCLUSION: The mapping suggests an incipient awareness of patient-centeredness within the research field of physiotherapy. Empirical studies dominate the field, whereas conceptual and critical papers seem in need of wider acknowledgment. The research field is divided into two mutually disconnected trends: one concerned with understanding the complexity of clinical practice and patients' experiences of treatment and illness, and another trend concerned with solving "the problem" of patient involvement.

Into the black-box of learning in simulation debriefing: A qualitative research study.

BACKGROUND: Simulated learning activities are on the rise worldwide. Debriefing is viewed as a central element in simulated learning to enhance learning. Still, the question of how students learn in debriefing is underexplored. AIM, DESIGN AND METHOD: The paper offers a contribution to the academy to better understand debriefing by presenting an in-depth, qualitative analysis of the practice of debriefing, carried out with 40 first-year nursing students (n = 40) in relation to roleplay simulation, training in clinical decision-making and patient involvement. The simulation sessions were carried out at a university hospital in Copenhagen, Denmark during clinical practice periods. FINDINGS: Using theoretical conceptualizations from learning theorist Knud Illeris as sensitizing concepts, the paper points to the emergence of intended as well as unintended learning processes. In addition, it highlights the importance of focusing on facilitators' empowering as well as disempowering impact on students' motivation to engage in debriefing learning processes. An important finding is that the curricular overload leads to a prioritization of learning outcome related to natural science at the expense of "softer" competencies, e.g. patient involvement. The analysis also finds that students' motivation to process their real-life clinical experiences tends to be neglected. The conclusion thus points to a profound dilemma, unidentified in the literature, of learning ambitions in debriefing: the tension between attaining the formal learning objective and thus facilitating a tightly structured and focused debriefing on the one side, and the wish to develop critical and independent thinking on the other.