Lack of participation in the open labour market is highly prevalent for people with a mental illness across countries, and the proportion of people who get some kind of sickness benefit because of mental illness is steadily growing in Europe. Vocational rehabilitation through individual placement and support (IPS) has been shown to be effective and is evidence-based for people with severe mental illness. In Sweden, the method is used but not scientifically evaluated. The aim was to investigate vocational and nonvocational outcomes at a 1-year follow-up and the relationships between these outcomes, at two different sites in the north of Sweden. The participants were 65 men and women, mostly younger than 30 years of age and with a mental illness. Occupational situation, psychiatric symptoms, self-esteem, quality of life and psychosocial functioning were assessed. The vocational outcome during 1 year was that 25% of the participants were employed, and 14% were in education. Most of the participants moved from unemployment to work practice for a prolonged time. Participants in employment, education or work practice at follow-up showed higher satisfaction with their occupational situation than those without regular activities outside home. Among the participants in work practice, improvements in psychiatric symptoms and global functioning were identified. This attempt is the first to evaluate supported employment according to the IPS model for persons with mental illness applied in the Swedish welfare system. There is a need for a longer follow-up period to evaluate whether interventions such as further education and work practice actually will lead to real work.

Individual placement and support (IPS) has been found to be an effective intervention for rehabilitation to work in the field of mental health. Being as the principles used in IPS reflect core values in the concept of personal recovery, several other outcomes than just the percentage of clients gaining employment are of interest. The purpose of the study was to describe a number of unique processes and analyze these with a special concern for circumstances perceived as important for the individual IPS process. A collective instrumental case-study design was used and five cases were included. Data from three different sources were collected, both quantitative and qualitative. The findings illustrate how a relationship characterized by curiosity, interest and engagement in the individual client, positive risk-taking and time for reflected experiences resulted in processes of change. It was concluded that providing IPS is a type of specialized relationship-based work that includes advanced problem solving.

The paper stresses the importance of listening to customers at university libraries and the need to move from a library-based view to a customer-based view. Largely on account of their public nature, academic libraries in Finland -where the study was conducted -have until recently, based their operations and development mainly on conventional procedures and library-based perspectives. However, in order to better serve their own clientele, as well as their parent organizations, they need to listen to the voices of their customers, the library users. One way of 'listening' is through a customer survey, in this case LibQUAL -a survey instrument developed in the US for libraries. It collects data on the quality of the services, thus enabling libraries to identify areas in which service levels should be improved.

Objective: People with disabilities find it harder to enter the labour market than people without disabilities and those with a mental illness are, in relation to people with other disabilities, employed at an essentially lower extent. Many are effectively helped by the vocational rehabilitation model Individual Placement and Support (IPS), but there are still many individuals left in undesired unemployment. This study investigates potential predictors of the vocational outcomes of a one-year follow up of IPS in the north of Sweden. Participants: The participants were 65 men and women, mostly younger than 30 years of age predominantly with a diagnosis of anxiety and/or depression. Methods: Baseline data related to sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the client, the client's own perceptions of everyday living and participation, self-esteem and quality of life, as well as the quantity of employment support, were investigated using analyses of logistic regression. Results: Of three identified potential predictors, only psychiatric symptoms remained significant in the multivariate logistic regression analyses. A lower level of symptoms increased the odds with 5.5 for gaining employment during one year. Conclusions: Careful investigation of how psychiatric symptoms influence clients' occupational performance is of importance. By understanding essential aspects of the relationships between the clients´ individual characteristics, the rehabilitation context and the vocational outcomes, more appropriate and effective interventions may be offered to the individual client.

Objectives: To (a) examine participation rate as a function of municipality, age group and living status; and (b) investigate the main reasons for exclusion and declining as stated by the women themselves. Design: Analysis of participation rate and content analysis of statements given in phone calls explaining exclusion or declination from a project in which 24 h recalls and food-diaries were used. Subjects: Self-managing Swedish women (n ¼ 505) were systematically selected from a stratified random sample covering single living and cohabiting women aged 64 -68, 74 -78 and 84 -88 y living in three municipalities. Results: No significant differences were found among included and declining women when municipalities and living status was analysed, but significantly more women in the oldest group were excluded (P > 0.01). Among those in their 80s living at home, the usual reasons for exclusion were illness, disability or dementia, and many lived in institutions for old people. The four most used explanations to decline participation were 'lack of time', 'tired, fragile, sick or having bad memory', 'not willing to participate in scientific studies' and 'too old and nothing to contribute'. Conclusions: The participation rate was, compared with other food surveys in the older generation, fairly good, especially among those in their 80s. However, the most active and the very ill and disabled did not participate.