This article explores major research traditions influencing Nordic care research – and Norwegian care research in particular. Care research includes the study of caring and care work, the ontological foundation of care, as well as the conditions and consequences of care within a given society. From the earliest contributions of pioneers Kari Martinsen, Katie Eriksson and Kari Wærness in the ’70s and ’80s and forward to the present, this research field has grown considerably. While some researchers emphasize an empirical approach, others focus on development of theory. This article asserts the advantages of increased integration regarding both research perspectives. Today’s government-financed care research stands in a challenged position, striving on the one hand to be “system-supportive”, while at the same time maintaining a “system-critical” profile. Additional assertions claim the necessity for greater emphasis on care research promoting “the good day” for people whose lives are characterized by weakness, adversity and death. Care research should maintain this perspective: remain focused for those individuals who, from an economic viewpoint, appear “unprofitable”.

Care is a fundamental precondition, as well as a common and well-established notion which has significant impact both on life in general and on professional practice. Humans engage in relations of interdependency: without care we are damaged, life falls apart. Care in professional contexts is manifested through the application of competent appraisal and the exercise of discernment. Professions use different kinds of knowledge; theoretical expertise, practical know-how and discerning judgement. Acumen or discerning judgement creates links between different kinds of knowledge and the relevant professional situation, or between the universal and the particular. Drawing on the philosophy of K.E. Løgstrup and of Chr. Norberg-Schulz, the authors explore and discuss care as a fundamental precondition, while the philosophy of Aristotle and of H.-G. Gadamer provide the starting point for a discussion of professional discernment.

Common morality (allmennmoral) refers to a set of moral values, norms and virtues – including their associated practices – on which there is an open consensus in a given culture at a specific point in time. Common decency (folkeskikk) is understood as conventional, aesthetic and moral norms (that are connected with values) for custom, usage and appropriate conduct in given situations in a given culture at a given time, while the ethical demand is a demand to take care of that in the other’s life which I hold in my hand, for his or her best interest, and for his or her own sake. This article examines the place of ethics and care in common morality, common decency and the ethical demand. Common morality is examined through a reading of Knut Erik Tranøy’s book The Open Mind (Det åpne sinn); common decency is examined through examples from everyday language in Norway, while the ethical demand is examined through a reading of texts by Knud E. Løgstrup. The article highlights and discusses how common morality, common decency and the ethical demand both supplement, are contingent on, and mutually challenge each other.

This essay delineates various aspects of the phenomenon of concern. The approach is phenomenological and relates to the Danish philosophy of life tradition. The purpose is not to define what concern is, but to adopt a reflective approach to discovering novel aspects of the phenomenon. Pathological worry, which can encircle us, trap us and rob us of our strength, is not discussed here.

The main focus of this essay is a contemplation on the loving concern that is said to form the basis for care. When I am concerned about others, I care about them. Loving concern for a patient can convey strength and provide him with a positive outlook on life. Loving concern for others can be a prerequisite for care. Did I do the right thing, could I have acted differently, is this going to help? Such concern can be directed towards past, present or future occurrences. It is grounded in an ethics of care that encompasses third parties, care for the environment and future generations.

The purpose of this study is to explore the importance and expression of care in the face of suffering in a classic text. The chosen text is The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. Hermeneutic reading of text is employed as a methodological approach. Throughout the interpretation process three main themes emerged: Being self-sufficient is enough – when one is independent and invulnerable; being self-sufficient is not enough – when dependence and vulnerability emerge; to become oneself – when dependence and vulnerability meet care. The classic text shows that caring might have limited conditions in man. It shows how man can become self-sufficient in pursuit of his own enjoyment and pleasure. When the human’s pleasurable life is disturbed, and vulnerability is awakened, independence becomes insufficient, and an appeal to be seen and met with care is actualized. Care is timeless in time.

Care is a natural aspect of human beings and is rooted in love. In Tolstoy’s text «The Death of Ivan Ilyich», the reader takes part in the suffering of a human being during his final days. Reading this text in the light of Kierkegaard’s «The Sickness unto Death» and «Works of Love» provides an understanding of how love comes to expression through a sacrificial process toward reconciliation and forgiveness. As a dual process, sacrifice emerges as a formative process in which a person can create his/ her ethical character and subordinate caregiving for sufferers to ethical conditions.

Previous research shows that participation in research can affect participants’ health in a positive manner. This study emanates from the assumption that a caring potential exists in some research methods. The aim of this study is to illuminate clinical co-researchers’ experiences of that which is caring in a reflective dialogue.

Clinical co-researchers (21 carers) participated in reflective dialogues which were part of the framework of a research project with a hermeneutical application research design. The notes from various dialogue situations, questionnaire responses, and statements made during focus group interviews have been analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results were reflected against Eriksson’s theory of caritative caring.

The study results confirm that reflective dialogues are experienced as being caring. It is caring to be given the space and time to reflect on the core of caring, be able to create new stories about when caring is active, discover new aspects of one’s self as a caring person, be confirmed and affirmed, and engage in mutual sharing. The participants experienced that their existence beyond the professional role had been «touched» when the dialogues included a universal knowing about caring and human beings. That which is active in caring exists in the natural care that is nourishing and cleansing, as well as in communion.

In this article we give a short presentation of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy of care as a fundamental trait of the human way of existing in the world. Human beings can according to this philosophy not be reduced to passive spectators of the world or to an organism which just uses its environment for its own purposes, but we are at the outset a form of existence which relates to the world in a caring way. Since this is our basic way of existence, any lack of care is caused by a form of alienation in relation to ourselves and the world which Heidegger calls decaying into (German) «man», which is best translated as the «one»: we are not genuinely ourselves but do what «one» does. This form of alienation is then compared to Søren Kierkegaard’s concept of despair. This philosophical approach to the phenomenon of care is then compared to care as applied in a professional context. This leads to the following conclusion: since our existence is basically care, no profession can set a limit to our general caring responsibility. And: the practicing of professional care is based on our existence as care. At the end of the chapter, we present briefly empirical research supporting Heidegger’s philosophy of care as the human way of existing.

Care work is often understood as relational work – work that centers on interpersonal relations between the caregivers and care recipients. Regarding the dyadic relations as a principal analytical focus, other aspects of care work may easily be disguised. An ethnographic study of care work in nursing homes (Fjær & Vabø, 2013), revealed that general notions of good care often implied that care staff were actively shaping social situations in order to re-create the regularity and social forms of everyday life. In this article, I argue that an analytical focus on the everyday life of care recipients may play a vital role in developing home-based care. This approach may inter alia be a fruitful way to avoid the narrow concentration of current ideas about reablement on bodily impairments and physical capacities.

This article explores how technology, care and old age combine, in a time when society's belief in technology and innovation dominates. Critical perspectives on technology in care often outline the future of old age as instrumentally controlled and surveilled with care workers so distant that their faces remain in the shadows. This article analyzes care at «ground level» in municipal homecare services where care is done with welfare technology – and the fragile old body needs to fit in. The safety alarm plays an especially important role in the shaping of the interactions between care workers and service users in order to achieve care. This technocare-practice requires that the care workers learn to interpret and sort user needs as reported through the mobile phone. Incoming alarms often demand that they prioritize between users, while also creating pretexts for care.

Care and technology are not contradictions or «representatives of different worlds», but interconnections that make good or bad care experiences. Therefore, the practical value of welfare technology cannot be defined in advance. When that still happens, this reflects the policy of welfare technology as an institutionalizing process with currently larger effects in the care sector than the individual technical systems.

Health-related services have for a long period been prioritized in Norway at the expense of other services in home-based elderly care. The intention of the new Law on Municipal Health and Care Services from 2012, however, was to promote social security, prevent social problems and ensure that individuals get the opportunity to have an active and meaningful everyday life together with others. This requires that social care as a phenomenon and as a relational and situational practice should be put on the agenda. This article, drawing on qualitative data from two municipalities in Norway, analyzes the potentials of social care, by examining the care work of home-helpers as a case. Based on our findings, we suggest defining social care as ‘recognizing the user as an individual (rather than as a patient), and facilitating, or creating opportunities for, meaningful activities and social relationships’. Finally, we argue that it is necessary to take professional, cultural and structural measures in order to promote social care as a key area of action in municipal elderly care.

Despite the fact that the authorities have set high goals for quality of care, we know that residents in nursing homes are subjected to inadequate care and neglect. This article discusses the topic by referring to research on abuse and neglect in nursing homes in Norway. There is a need for knowledge about, and attention to the fact that nursing home residents are subjected to abuse and neglect, either from staff, co-residents or relatives. It is important that the staff are trained to be able to recognize and understand the consequences of abuse and neglect. Training programs that focus on ethics, communication skills and person-centered care can reduce the risk of abuse and neglect. Nursing homes must allow and encourage staff to reflect upon and ask questions about practices that are harmful for the residents. In addition, good routines regarding notifications are necessary and the staff must be informed about these routines. An organization that encourages its staff to question malpractice and ethical violations is an organization that is in a good position to make positive changes.

Within the interprofessional discipline palliative care there has been an interesting development in Norway. There have been questions around the use of palliative care as an adequate term in the discipline. The argument from parts of the Norwegian professional field have been that ‘care’ is not perceived as a term in the Norwegian language that makes sense in a professional context. Palliation is chosen as the correct term. This scientific essay is a reflection around the concept of care in professional contexts which deals with professional palliative care and treatment. Our opinion is that there are reasonable causes, both common and professional, to include the concept of care in the discipline of palliative care.

The article discusses New Public Governance in the light of an understanding of care and caring. New Public Governance is based on a view of humanity where each human being is an actor in his own life. Nursing care is based on a relational view of humanity where the moral responsibility for fellow human beings is a key element. The purpose of the article is to identify the pitfalls of the moral responsibility to put forward new ways of acting to prevent neglect of care in a New Public Governance healthcare system.

Florence Nightingale is introduced as a role model for moral responsibility, as her point of departure is to create life-conducing ways of acting in a relational collaboration with the patient. This collaboration is based on the person and the existence of this person. The article argues for a pressing demand to act and that the nurse in the specific care situation must discover which appeal for help is expressed by the patient and which life phenomena are at stake.

The New Public Governance ideal is that self-management and involvement may lead to avoidance of responsibility and neglect of care. Thus, the focus should be to reclaim care as a value in society and assess the right distribution of responsibility between the patient and the nurse in each individual situation.