On the 31 of mars, Emma Säfström defended her thesis ”Continuity of care after hospitalization due to cardiac conditions: Patients’ perceptions, validity and reliability of a measure, and associations with outcomes”. Professor Anna Forsberg from Lunds University was the opponent. The thesis describes how patients with cardiac conditions perceive continuity of care after discharge from hospital, and how it is associated with factors such as perceived control self-care, health-related quality of life and readmissions.

The inspiration for the thesis came from clinical experiences of patients’ vulnerability after discharge. ‘After discharge from hospital, the patients are very vulnerable, and I wanted to improve their situation’ Emma Säfström says and develops: ’The patients may receive care from specialized outpatient clinics, primary care and home healthcare at the same time. If the responsibilities between the different health care providers are not clear, there is a risk of fragmentation of care. In the worst-case scenario, the patients are left on their own to organize the care’.

In order to enable measuring the patients’ perception, a Canadian questionnaire; the Patient Continuity of Care Questionnaire (PCCQ) was translated from English to Swedish and adapted to a Swedish setting. Data was collected from 1000 patients. The questionnaire has proved good validity and reliability. Furter, the patients perceived highest levels of continuity in items related to relational continuity and lowest levels of continuity in items related to management continuity.

Now, the goal is that the questionnaire PCCQ will be implemented and used as a validated, standardized way to evaluate the patients’ perception of continuity of care after hospitalization.

The thesis is available: https://doi.org/10.3384/9789180750486  

Recently, I had a chance to talk to Johan Israelsson, one of the founders of the Swedish network for cardiac arrest survivors and next of kin. Johan has a PhD in Caring science and has done research on cardiac arrest survivors and their health-related quality of life.  

Johan tells me that the founders of the network consist of about 15 people, including representatives from the Swedish Resuscitation Council (Svenska Rådet för Hjärt-lungräddning), The Swedish Heart and Lung Association (Riksförbundet HjärtLung), but most importantly cardiac arrest survivors and their next of kin.

The network´s FB-group was created to provide a platform for those surviving a cardiac arrest or being a next of kin, to find support and comfort, as there is a lack of support available in the healthcare system. The FB-group started in the spring of 2021 and currently has over 320 members. To become a member of the FB-group, one must be a cardiac arrest survivor or a next of kin (and accept the group rules). The group provides its members with an opportunity to share their stories and experiences, which leads to powerful stories and opportunity to get to know each other. Johan believes that this network will provide the members with comfort and support, as many survivors and their next of kin may feel sense of loneliness in their experience.

The link to the FB-group is to be found in the information for survivors and next of kin that’s handed out during post cardiac arrest follow-up in Sweden, which will hopefully help even more survivors and the next of kin in the future.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/hjartstopp

/ Karin Larsson

In mid January a group from CESAR met for a writing retreat. The work focused mainly on the writing of three papers in the field of heart disease. One of the papers focuses on the co-design of an online support programme for informal carers of people with heart failure. The two others are based on research conducted within the Nordic research project HeartMind aiming to study families with a parent affected by heart disease, with one of the papers focusing on the life situations of healthy spouses and the other on the ill parents’ perspective. The group had some very productive days with meetings and supervision of PhD students and some recreational activities, apart from the writing. Hopefully we can all look forward to three new papers being submitted and adding knowledge to the field of heart disease during spring 2023!

We congratulate PhD-student Emma Säfström for being nominated for the Association of Cardiovascular Nursing & Allied Professions (ACNAP) doctoral student award! Emma’s excellent presentation concerned a project where she has worked on developing a short version and psychometric evaluation of an instrument on patient continuity of care. Emma is supervised by Professors Tiny Jaarsma, Anna Strömberg and Doctor Maria Liljeroos.

We also congratulate Marie Lundberg for her nomination for the ACNAP clinical case excellence award! Marie held a great presentation on a case from the Tele-Yoga project concerning a young woman with pulmonary arterial hypertension and what happened when she tried yoga. Professor Anna Strömberg is the Tele-yoga study’s project leader.

Finally, we congratulate doctor Ghassan Mourad for winning best rapid fire abstract presentation! Ghassan did a brilliant presentation on a project about the cost-effectivness of internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy in patients with cardiovascular disease and depressive symptoms.

Emma, Marie and Ghassan all presented their work at the EuroHeartCare 2022 in Madrid. In the picture you also see Professors Anna Strömberg, and Tiny Jaarsma and they are the co-founders of Cesar!

The new board of the ACNAP. Doctor Leonie Klompstra in the back row, far right. Photo by ESC.

All members of Cesar congratulate Doctor Leoni Klompstra in her new role as President-Elect of the Association of Cardiovascular Nursing & Allied Professions (ACNAP). The mandate concerns 2022-2024 and officially starts in September.

Between the 21 and 24^th of May 2022, two simultaneous congresses were arranged by two communities within the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The Association of Cardiovascular Nursing & Allied Professions (ACNAP) was responsible for organizing EuroHeartCare and the Heart failure association arranged Heart Failure.

Several members of Cesar attended the congresses and presented their research. Professor Tiny Jaarsma and Anna Strömberg had both oral presentations and ePosters and Professor Jaarsma also acted as moderator in different sessions. Doctor Leoni Klompstra and Ghassan Mourad also presented their research in different forums. PhD-students Emma Säfström, Sara Pettersson, Magda Eriksson-Liebon, Towe Hedbom and Hanna Allemann joined with e-Posters. Emma also had an oral presentation. All in all, Cesar members were successful in spreading their research in an international context. Keep an eye up for more reports from both these congresses!

After a few cancelled meetings, due to the pandemic, we were finally able to go through with a lunch-to-lunch-meeting for members in iCARE (the innovative Cardiac Arrest REsearch group). In total, 21 group members met up at Stadshotellet in Kalmar. We had prepared a program, including a lecture by Professor Johan Herlitz based on the most recent cardiac arrest research and data from the Swedish register of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. In addition, the PhD students in iCARE presented and discussed their projects with the other members. Also, the recently published European https://cprguidelines.eu/ and Swedish (www.hlr.nu) resuscitation guidelines were highlighted, and several potentially important new research projects were discussed.

We are already looking forward to the next meeting! Many thanks to all participants! 😊

Kristofer Årestedt, Anders Bremer and Johan Israelsson

Nina Carlson will defend her thesis, Grief reactions in family members of persons who died from sudden cardiac arrest, 17 June at the Linnaeus University in Kalmar.   

Conclusions: Losing a close person following cardiac arrest means suddenly being in the borderland between life and death. These experiences are intertwined with the search for coherence and meaning in the transitions to proceed with life. The involved healthcare professionals have a unique opportunity to provide family members with answers that facilitate a coherent narration of their loss. Prolonged grief and psychological distress are significant problems in bereaved family members of persons who died from sudden cardiac arrest. This is especially true for spouses, those in need of support from healthcare professionals, and those with low social support. Family members should be offered bereavement support to reduce the risk for prolonged grief and psychological distress after unsuccessful resuscitation and sudden death from cardiac arrest.

Faculty: Faculty of Health and Life Sciences

Date: Friday June 17 2022 at 10.00 am 

Place: Room Lapis, Building Vita, Kalmar

External reviewer: Associate Professor Anita Kärner Köhler, Linköpings University

Examining committee: Associate professor Maria Fridrichsen, Region Östergötland, Associate professor Jimmie Kristensson, Lund University, Professor Elizabeth Hanson, Linnaeus University

Chairperson: Professor Mirjam Ekstedt, Linnaeus University

Main supervisor: Professor Kristofer Årestedt, Linnaeus University

Examiner: Professor Mirjam Ekstedt, Linnaeus University

Posting: Friday May 25 2022 at 10.00 am, University Library, Kalmar

Members of the Cesar Network takes matters concerning health of the heart seriously 😊!

In addition to contributing to important research on the matter, they are also concerned with taking care of their own hearts. On the 16:th of May, “Vårruset” took place in Norrköping, Sweden. “Vårruset” is the biggest exercise race in Sweden for women of all ages. It is aimed at contributing to a joy for movement and also to a sense of fellowship. It does not matter if you’re an experienced athlete or if your are a new beginner – it is for everyone. Professor Tiny Jaarsma was team leader for the group “Tiny’s LiU runners” including another two members from the Cesar network (Associate professor Anita Kärner Köhler, and PhD student Sara Pettersson).

During the cardiovascular springmeeting in Malmö Christina Andreae was awarded Mona Schlyters clinical prize distributed by VIC.

During a long career as a nurse, Christina has made extensive and significant contributions in the cardiovascular field. Christina has carried out several quality or developmental project as well as nursing research that has increased the value for patients, relatives and health care professionals and inspired others to improve work in the healthcare system.

Congratulations Christina!