Nurses need to reevaluate the newly diagnosed child's care routines so as to shift focus from the illness to the child. This requires competent nurses, secure in their caring role.

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Children's experiences of visiting an adult intensive care unit seem to support theories that emphasize the involvement and participation of children in family matters.

Annually, throughout the world, more than 800,000 primary total hip replacement surgery procedures are performed on patients suffering from hip joint arthrosis. Since 1991, approximately 11,000 of these procedures are performed annually in Sweden. This study aimed to investigate any changes in the patients' life quality 6 weeks and 6 months after their total hip replacement surgery had been performed, compared to that immediately prior to the operation. It also aimed to examine the reason for surgery, the types of prostheses used, postoperative pain, complications and the actual usage of ambulation support. The Sickness Impact Profile self-appraisal instrument, together with personal patient interviews have been used as the basis of the research. A total of 51 patients responded to the quality of life instrument prior to their operation, 47 of these participated 6 weeks after the operation, and 40 patients 6 months after the operation. Significant differences in patients' total, physical and psychosocial quality of life 6 months postoperatively compared to the situation prior to the operation were found, but not between the situation before and 6 weeks after the total hip replacement surgery. The majority of patients were of the opinion that it was more important that the pain had disappeared or decreased, than any overall increase in the quality of life. Postoperative complications occurred within 6 weeks, and even after 6 months some patients still suffered from these.

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Allowing children to visit adult intensive care units (ICUs) has been an area of controversy. There is a lack of recent research dealing with visits by children and physicians' views and whether differences exist between the views held by nurses and physicians regarding visits by children. The aim of this study was to describe and compare reasons given by nurses and physicians for restricting visits by children to a relative hospitalized in an adult ICU. This was a quantitative, descriptive multicentre study. Nurses and physicians (n = 291) at 72 general adult ICUs participated, each completing a questionnaire. A majority of the nurses and physicians were positive to children visiting patients in ICU, but they also imposed restrictions. The most common reasons were: severity of the patient's injury (50%); the environment was frightening for the child (50%); the infection risk for the child (36%) and the patient (56%). Children <7 years were restricted more than those >7 years. Nurses were more positive than physicians to visits by younger children. Physicians were more positive to visits if the patient was tired and critically ill/injured or was a friend/cousin. More physicians refused visits due to the fact that children are too noisy for the staff. Risks of negative effects on the children's health by visiting patients were also stated. Nurses and physicians still restrict children's visits to adult ICUs for a number of reasons, and nurses' and physicians' views on children visiting differ and so also the views within each professional group. The differences in views show that the dynamics are complicated and this could be attributed to a lack of a common view of care, which prevents family-centred care that includes children from being practised.

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