The purpose of the study was to present a model of quality of life and related factors, to study quality of life in a group of elderly subjects, and to do preliminary testing of the model. Quality of life was defined as a sense of well-being, meaning and value. The model includes health, functional capacity, and coping mechanisms as intra-individual conditions for quality of life, while factors in the biophysical and sociocultural environment are described as external conditions. The study sample consisted of 300 subjects, aged 75 or older and living in Finland. Data were gathered by means of structured personal interviews. The participants' quality of life was generally quite good. The correlations among the variables related to quality of life were significant, but the results of the regression analyses showed that the individual aspects of quality of life did not have identical explanatory models. The internal consistency of the instruments was good. The results give preliminary support to the model, but in future studies more attention must be paid to the conceptual and theoretical validity. In order to achieve results that can be applied in gerontological nursing practice, different groups and contexts must be investigated.

Respect for autonomy and self-determination is a central principle in nursing ethics. Autonomy and quality of life are strongly connected, and, at the same time, autonomy is an important quality indicator on how older persons' housing functions. In this study, autonomy was conceived as self-determination. The aim of the study was to describe how older people living in sheltered housing experience self-determination and how they are valued as human beings. Eleven persons living in five different housing facilities for older people in southern Sweden were interviewed. The data were analysed by manifest and latent qualitative content analysis. The overall theme expressing the latent content in the interviews emerged as disempowerment, which implied an environment that does not strengthen individual self-determination. The results showed a negative experience of how these older people thought they were valued in the sheltered housing where they lived. In sheltered housing, more attention should be paid to residents' self-determination and sense of value.

Caring for older persons is both rewarding and consuming. Work with older people in Finland has been shown to be more burdensome than in the other Nordic countries. The aim of this study was to try out a Finnish version of the Stress of Conscience Questionnaire (SCQ) and explore stress of conscience in staff caring for older persons in Finland. The data were collected from the nursing staff (n = 350) working with older people in health centre wards, municipal and private nursing homes, and municipal and private dementia care units in Finland. It emerged clearly from the results that Finnish nursing staff mostly felt that they did not have enough time to provide good care to patients, and this gave them a troubled conscience. They also felt that the demanding work taxed their energy, a consequence being that they could not give their own families and loved ones the attention they would have liked.

Health promotion seems to be implicit in many nursing theories, but the theoretical and philosophical basis of health promotion in nursing is not always explicitly stated. The interpretation of health promotion is closely related to the interpretation of man, health, illness and nursing. There is a need to clarify, refine and redefine health promotion in nursing because the concept is partly nonspecific and has not been used to identify a distinctive nursing focus. The aim of this study was to formulate a stipulative definition of health promotive nursing with a holistic-existential approach. A philosophical frame of reference in combination with conceptual analysis and theoretical synthesis were used as the methodological approach. The philosophical framework served as a basis in selecting the nursing theories and influenced the analysis. Two nursing theories and one nursing model were selected due to their influence on Norwegian nursing and because of their philosophical basis. Through analysis and synthesis of the selected nursing theories, the concepts man, health, illness/disease and nursing were analysed. The paper proposes a stipulative definition of health promotion in nursing based on a holistic-existential approach, supported by five necessary conditions. The definition and conditions needs to be further investigated by both empirical studies and by comparing with other relevant nursing theories, in order to formulate theoretical statements. The proposed definition may be the first step in a process of developing a theoretical framework of health promotive nursing with a holistic-existential approach.