In 2009 contract dental care was introduced into Sweden's Public Dental Service under a programme called Dental Care for Health (DCH). Previous research has revealed a possible dilemma whereby dental care professionals had the role of insurance agent foisted upon them, as they were assigned the task of 'selling contracts'. Using qualitative interviews, this study explores how these professionals make sense of contract dental care today. Drawing on the concepts of occupational and organisational professionalism, in combination with the institutional logics perspective, we discern that dental care professionals are entangled in multiple rationalities when reasoning about and dealing with DCH. A professional logic comes into play over health issues and preventive care, while market and corporate logics are present in relation to selling contracts and taking responsibility for the financial aspects of DCH, all of which creates tensions in these professionals. Overall, dental care professionals in the welfare sector respond both to an organisational and an occupational professionalism.
In Sweden, mandatory reporting in social services is regulated by the Social Services Act to protect service users and improve services. The aim of this article is to describe mandatory reports by staff and compare types of mistreatment, severity and actions across three areas of social services: elderly care, disability services, and individual and family care. All the reports written by staff and investigated by a designated official over a 1‐year period (n = 1105) in one of the largest regions in Sweden were retrieved, inductively coded and quantitatively analysed. The results showed that most of the reports related to unsafe behaviour and organisational issues. Of all the reports, 14% (n = 156) were deemed to be serious. Differences in assessing mistreatment are discussed in relation to incident reporting in health care. The need for new models of analysis for mandatory reporting in social care is highlighted.
While previous drug treatment research has focused on the importance of supportive social relationships for recovery from alcohol and drugs, less is known about how this theme relates to compulsory drug treatment. This study analyzes how staff at four compulsory treatment institutions for adult drug users in Sweden rationalize the importance of maintaining contact with concerned significant others (CSOs) during the client's treatment. Four focus groups (22 participants) were carried out and analyzed thematically. This study shows that staff perceives the client's initial isolation as a necessity, primarily making CSOs a problem or distraction in relation to the recovery process. Moreover, staff position CSOs in two broad categories, as either 'problematic' or 'resourceful' in relation to a client's recovery. The two categories are used to justify individual regulation between clients and their CSOs, which varies between strictness and leniency. In addition, staff position themselves as guides, finding it necessary to help clients regulate problematic CSOs themselves and strengthen the link to those who are seen as resources. These two forms of regulatory worksetting rules and providing guidanceare analyzed in terms of disciplinary and pastoral power.
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