Background Ethically challenging situations are one of the many stressors that strain eldercare employees. Aim The study aimed to examine (1) the mean levels of ethically challenging situations among eldercare employees in different Finnish eldercare service types and (2) the associations between organizational constraints and poor work-unit collaboration with ethically challenging situations. Research design Cross-sectional survey in 2020 including 4,347 Finnish eldercare employees (response rate 67%). These employees provide care and support to older adults, such as assist with daily activities (...) and manage medical needs. Employees were classified into four categories based on the eldercare service type: home care ( n = 1,683), service housing ( n = 1,649), outpatient and ward care ( n = 650), and guidance and activity services ( n = 365). The data was analyzed with variance analysis, t-tests, and linear regression analysis. Ethical considerations The study was approved by the ethical board of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health. Respondents’ provided informed consent for participation. Findings Analyses showed that the level of ethically challenging situations was highest in service housing, among nurses, and among practical nurses. Organizational constraints—job strain and organizational injustice—had the strongest positive association with ethically challenging situations. Poor work-unit collaboration, instead, had a minor positive association with ethically challenging situations. Conclusions Organizational constraints, especially job strain and organizational injustice, are important to identify to alleviate ethically challenging situations among eldercare workers. (shrink)

The well-known impairments in the social use of eye-gaze by children with autism have been chiefly explored through experimental methods. The present study aims to contribute to the naturalistic analysis of social eye-gaze by applying Conversation Analysis to video recordings of three Finnish children with a diagnosis of autism, each interacting with familiar others in ordinary settings . The analysis identifies two interactional environments where some children with autism show eye-gaze related competence with respect to gazing at their co-participants: these (...) are when the child carries out an initiating action or a responsive action . We discuss how this qualitative analysis of interactional structure could be extended using quantitative methods and eye-tracking technology in order to develop a better understanding of the disorder. Keywords: Autism; eye-gaze; conversation analysis; social interaction; interactional competence. (shrink)

The authors study how an aerosol technology research group constructed a research agenda for itself and how its activity was changed in the process. The group's research agenda was heterogeneous, comprising several research areas in which the knowledge of aerosols was applied in different industrial contexts. The authors analyze the development of one of these areas, the research on the production of ultrafine particles from 1992 to 1997, employing the concept of mediated activity that has been developed in the cultural-historical (...) theory of activity. In the analysis, the activity is seen as the coevolution of the subject, the means, and the research object and the networks of collaboration with other activities. The applications developed in the collaborative networks significantly influence the identity and learning of the researchers, the construction of tools and instruments, and the selection of the phenomena to be studied. (shrink)