Telephone nursing services are expanding globally. Swedish Healthcare Direct is the largest healthcare provider in Sweden. This paper provides a comprehensive understanding of telephone nursing, as reflected by research on Swedish national telephone nursing, and discusses the findings in relation to international literature. A descriptive, mixed-studies literature review was conducted. Twenty-four articles from January 2003 to April 2015 were identified from PubMed, Scopus, and CINAHL, and included. The issues explored in this study are how telephone nursing is perceived by callers, telephone nurses, and managers, and what characterizes such calls. Callers value reassurance, support, respect and satisfaction and involvement in decisions can increase their adherence. The telephone nurses' perspective focused on problems and ethical dilemmas, communication, the decision support tool, and working tasks. The managers' perspective focused on nursing work goals and malpractice claims. Concerning call characteristics, authentic calls, incident reports, and threats to patient safety were considered. Telephone nursing seems safe, but gender can play a role in calls. Future research on caller access, equity, and efficiency, healthcare cost-effectiveness, distribution, and patient safety is needed.

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If telenurses are to perform good nursing care over the telephone, managers must provide them with resources, for example, support, education and opportunities for recovery during shifts. It seems that the role of the 1177 service has not been properly implemented and accepted within the healthcare system, and politicians need to anchor its mission within the healthcare organisation.

Patients with mental illness generally make their initial healthcare contact via a registered nurse. Although studies show that encountering and providing care to care-seekers with mental illness might be a challenge, little research exists regarding Primary Care Nurses' (PCN) view of the challenges they face. The aim of this study was to qualitatively explore PCNs' reflections on encountering care-seekers with mental illness in primary healthcare settings. The results consist of three themes: constantly experiencing patients falling through the cracks, being restricted by lack of knowledge and resources, and establishing a trustful relationship to overcome taboo, shame, and guilt.