Students' career preferences are an important issue to various stakeholders: to university administration, career counselors, higher education policy makers as well as to human resource managers in companies. Students, whose career preferences and goals are fulfilled, are better and more highly motivated employees. By a questionnaire survey carried out in 2016 in two institutions of higher education the present study compares career preferences and attitudes of 478 German and Croatian students. Factor analyses identify latent variables behind students' preferences. The identified significant differences between the Germans and Croatians are related to differences in socioeconomic environment and cultural differences derived through the Hofstede model. German students value safe jobs, trust and a high income significantly more, whereas for Croatian students stimulating tasks, career opportunities, a recognized profession and social responsibility are more important. Our results indicate that Hofstede's findings for the uncertainty avoidance index and the individualism/collectivism index might be questioned for the subsample of a young student population who show different value criteria in their career preferences. JEL Classification: J24

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BackgroundPain problems are a rapidly growing health problem found among both children and adolescent, and about 15–30% have reported chronic pain problems. School nurses in Norway meet adolescents with various ailments, including pain. Yet research on how school nurses perceive the pain experienced by adolescents is limited. The aim of the present study was to explore how school nurses explain and experience the everyday pain of adolescents.MethodA qualitative study with an explorative design comprising five focus group interviews. Each group consisted of three to five school nurses. Seventeen female school nurses in five junior high schools in Norway, age range 29–65 years participated. To cover the issues a semi structured interview guide was used. The transcribed text was analysed with qualitative content analysis.ResultsThe experience of school nurses with adolescents’ pain in everyday life is mainly that pain is a social, physical, and psychological phenomenon. School nurses experienced that everyday pain is reflecting: 1) high expectations, 2) difficult relationships and traumatic experiences and 3) an unhealthy lifestyle. School nurses have ambivalent attitudes to medicalisation of pain.ConclusionDespite of a biopsychosocial understanding of pain, the school nurses maintained referral practice of medical examinations, with the results that many adolescents became shuttlecocks in the health system. Although the school nurses´ were sceptical of the tendency towards medicalization in society, it appears that they actually help maintain this tendency.

ObjectiveTo examine the existing body of knowledge on quality of life (QoL) in partners of people with substance use problems (PP-SUPs) to provide a synthesized summary of the evidence and identify gaps in our knowledge on the QoL of PP-SUPs.MethodsA systematic scoping review was performed. Publications indexed in EMBASE, Medline, PsycINFO, CINAHL, SocINDEX, and CENTRAL were searched for original, empirical, peer-reviewed, full-length research papers that examined QoL in PP-SUPs. Research papers identified through a manual search of key references and known references by co-authors were also included. A total of 3070 abstracts were screened, 41 full-text papers examined, and nine were found to meet the inclusion criteria. Eligibility was determined in two steps by four and two independent researchers, respectively. The main findings were explored by content analysis.ResultsEight of the nine included studies had quantitative designs, one had a mixed methods design, and no qualitative studies were found. Three studies were conducted exclusively among PP-SUPs, whereas the others included various subgroups. A majority of participants were women, and no study was conducted exclusively among men. Nearly half of the studies reported on whether there were minor children in the PP-SUPs’ household. The studies used established and generic QoL instruments based on different conceptual and theoretical perspectives on QoL. A majority of the studies found lower QoL in PP-SUPs than in general population, with substance use by the person with a SUP having the most impact on QoL of all evaluated factors. Two studies reported that gender was associated with QoL, with poor QoL being associated with being a male partner and vice versa for female partners.ConclusionsFurther research is needed to examine QoL in PP-SUPs exclusively. A variety of QoL instruments covering various, but limited, dimensions of the concept have been used in previous studies of PP-SUPs. Thus, obtaining a comprehensive understanding of PP-SUPs’ QoL is challenging. Both qualitative and large-scale quantitative designs should be used in research on QoL in PP-SUPs, particularly among those with a parenting role.

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