vetenskapsrådets kartläggning, utvärdering och rekommendationer ...

2 KARTLÄGGNING OCH UTVÄRDERING AV SVENSK VÅRDFORSKNING – HUVUDRAPPORT OCH UNDERLAG FÖR VETENSKAPSRÅDETS REKOMMENDATIONER
JÖNKÖPING UNIVERSITY
The report spans the work of six departments or institutes, denoting a broad
view of Care Sciences involving three research profiles and four smaller
research programs/platforms. The three main profiles are: Ageing; Child;
and Kvalitetsförbättringar (only provided in Swedish), which has two sub
themes: long term illness and quality improvement /leadership. The four
research programmes are: 1) biomedicine, 2) oral health, 3) prosthetics and
orthotics, 4) social work.
The assessors raised questions about whether ‘biomedicine’ fits with the
scope of Care Sciences as described in the instructions to reviewers. Overall,
the report constitutes very dense descriptions of a range of work from
projects utilising basic science techniques to outcomes development and
applied practice development.
The statistics shows that nursing, social work and “other social sciences”
are the largest groups, the majority of who are women. There is a good
spread of staff across the age range.
In Ageing, there is basic research on cognitive function and its hereditary
influences as well as applied research examining support needs and services
for older people. Under the Child profile, major foci are reported as: development
of the WHO health classification system ICF and its application in education
and clinical contexts; participation; well-being and quality of life in
long term conditions; and anxiety and pain in children. Under the long term
illness and dysfunction theme a range of work is reported from cardiac care
to palliative care. Although there is an avowed focus on ‘illness’ in the latter,
it appears that the work has been historically organized in a largely disease
focused manner, with emphasis on cardiac care and rheumatoid arthritis.
Four sub themes are identified: 1) Long term illness and its consequences
for patients and carers (at least eight sub issues are listed under this sub
theme); 2) Relationships (again followed by some diffuse sub issues); 3) staff
roles and client’s worker roles; 4) Instrumental development (again followed
by many sub issues). The quality improvement and leadership profile was
established in 2007, and is developing ‘improvement science’ research under
four themes: 1) quality improvement in health and social care; 2) leadership
development; 3) innovation for improvement of health and welfare; 4) health
policy research. Following these four profiles are descriptions of research in
biomedicine, oral health sciences, prosthetics and orthotics, and social work.
Quality of the research
It is difficult to assess this programme as one entity since it is so broad. Comment
is therefore provided on each of the constitutive elements. Under the
Ageing profile, key achievements are reported from both the basic science
VETENSKAPSRÅDETS KARTLÄGGNING, UTVÄRDERING OCH REKOMMENDATIONER ANGÅENDE SVENSK VÅRDFORSKNING 47