BackgroundThere are inherent methodological challenges in the measurement of mental health problems in longitudinal research. There is constant development in definitions, taxonomies and demands concerning the properties of mental health measurements. The aim of this paper was to construct composite measures of mental health problems (according to today’s standard) from single questionnaire items devised in the early 1980s, and to evaluate their internal consistency and factorial invariance across the life course using the Northern Swedish Cohort.MethodsAll pupils in the last year of compulsory school in Luleå in 1981 (n = 1083) form a prospective cohort study where the participants have been followed with questionnaires from the age of 16 (in 1981) until the age of 43 (in 2008). We created and tested the following composite measures from self-reports at each follow-up: depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, functional somatic symptoms, modified GHQ and positive health. Validity and internal consistency were tested by confirmatory factor analysis, including tests of factorial invariance over time.ResultsAs an overall assessment, the results showed that the composite measures (based on more than 30-year-old single item questions) are likely to have acceptable factorial invariance as well as internal consistency over time.ConclusionsTesting the properties of the mental health measures used in older studies according to the standards of today is of great importance in longitudinal research. Our study demonstrates that composite measures of mental health problems can be constructed from single items which are more than 30 years old and that these measures seem to have the same factorial structure and internal consistency across a significant part of the life course. Thus, it can be possible to overcome some specific inherent methodological challenges in using historical data in longitudinal research.

Within Northern Europe, gendered roles and responsibilities within the family have been challenged through an emergence of different family forms, increasing cultural diversity, and progressive developments in welfare policies. To varying degrees, welfare policies in different countries support a dual-earner model and encourage men to be more active as fathers by reinforcing statutory rights and responsibilities. In child welfare practice, there has traditionally been a strong emphasis on the mother as primary carer for the child; the father has been less visible. This paper explores, in four national welfare contexts, how child welfare social workers include fathers in practice decisions. Data were collected using focus group interviews with social workers from England, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden. Similarities and differences emerge in relation to services and the focus of social work assessments. However, overall, the research suggests that despite gains in policy and legislation that promote gender equality, fathers remain largely absent in child welfare practice decisions about the parenting of their children. From the research, we raise questions for social work practice and the development of welfare policies.

Changes in school demands over time could not explain the increasing trend in psychosomatic problems among adolescents. Since the relationship between school demands and psychosomatic problems is strong across time, there is, however, a continued need for school-based interventions. More studies are required to gain further understanding of adolescent mental health from a trend perspective.

The aim of the study was to explore whether parent-adolescent relations are associated to self-reported health of adolescents. Logistic regression analyses were performed on a cross-sectional data set consisting of 5060 adolescents, grades 7-9, from six municipalities in the northern part of Sweden. The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Umeå, Sweden. Results showed that, in both boys and girls, experiencing low parental demands as well as perceiving the relationship quality and the communication with parents as poor were significantly associated with having poor general health, somatic complaints and feelings of stress. In general, girls scored lower on self-reported health than boys, but our findings indicate that these gender differences could not be explained by relations to parents. In conclusion, relations to parents play an important role for self-reported health of adolescents. Although no causal-effect statements can be determined in this study, it is implied that there is a need for health professionals, such as school nurses, school welfare officers, etc., to pay special attention to parent-adolescent relations in their work with adolescents.

From a public health perspective, youth unemployment is a societal problem in need of more attention and intervention in order to prevent long-term adverse health outcomes.

This article explores ways in which gender equality, family policy and child welfare social work intersect in four countries: England, Ireland, Norway and Sweden. Over time, conditions for gender equality in parenting have improved, partly due to family policy developments removing structural barriers. These changes, however, vary between countries; Sweden and Norway are considered more progressive as compared with the UK and Ireland. Here, we draw on focus group data collected from child welfare social workers in England, Ireland, Norway and Sweden to compare these different contextual changes and how these are reflected in related social work practice decisions. The focus group discussions were based on a vignette, and thematic analysis was applied. Overall, welfare social workers are aware of the need to support gender equality in parenting, there is a heavy focus on mothers in child welfare practice decisions, and fathers are largely absent. Uniquely, we show that this is influenced by both a strong child-centred perspective, and a gendered risk perspective, in which fathers are seen to pose more risk to the children than mothers.

The aim of the study was to examine school-related determinants of self-reported health among adolescents. Questionnaire survey data comprising 4,972 students, Grades 7 through 9, from 20 schools in northern Sweden were used. Also, complimentary data about each school were collected from the Swedish National Agency for Education. Using multilevel logistic regression analyses, results showed that most variation in self-reported health was explained by individual-level differences. Truancy, bullying, and poor relations with teachers significantly increased the odds ratio of reporting poor general health, for boys and for girls. Most variables at the school level, for example, school size and student-teacher ratio, did not render significant associations with students' self-reported health. In conclusion, this study indicates that health promotion at school, including school health services, may benefit from focusing primarily on individual-level determinants of health, that is, students' relations to peers and teachers, without ignoring that bullying and weak student-teacher relationships also may induce school-level interventions.

This study examines the conceptualisation of family in key social legislative documents guiding social workers in two European countries, whose welfare systems have previously been labelled as re-familialised (Lithuania) or de-familialised (Sweden). The focus is on the concept of family as delineated on three legislative levels: the constitutional level, the general family policy level, and the child welfare policy level. ‘Family’ is explicit in Lithuanian law, and the regulation of family formation and responsibility is imperative, while this is much less so in Swedish law. The analysis reveals how general welfare systems (regime-types) are linked to legislative frameworks, which, in turn, provide fundamentally different conditions for social work in different contexts.