About

The research group was established in 2013 and is situated at Campus Hammerfest, Finnmark. It organises R&Ds which have their main focus on studies of nursing practise and health challenges in district areas. We have particular focus on research into nursing North Sami patients, use of ICT in education and how health is affected by people’s way of life, where they live and how they work.

The purpose of the research group is to establish a locally rooted district-research fellowship at our campus, where local society challenges tied to nursing practise, health and lifestyle is in focus.

We will direct our research towards circumstances where patients do not have immediate access to specialised health services. The Coordination Reform 2008-2010 initiate some challenges for both large and small places. The research group is interested in how the reform will affect societies with open settlement, where there is far between the different services and where municipalities need to cooperate over large geographical areas to meet the intentions of the reform. The Reform also establishes the Sami population’s claim to use their own language, which cannot be suppressed, and announces focus on language, culture and tradition competence with health care personnel. Projects which involve North Sami language, culture and tradition competence is valued, because the people in this region have a specific responsibility to make the health care services available to the North Sami population. We will therefore focus especially on research tied to nursing challenges when meeting with North Sami patients.

We wish to explore how healthcare offers and the practise of nursing and care in districts with vulnerable primary industries, multilingualism, risk exposedness and rapidly growing industries can develop. Working as a nurse in rural areas demands action competence and action preparedness when it comes to the local society’s need for nursing and healthcare. This entails knowledge about different challenges, limitations and possibilities that are present in open settlements. The goal is that the research will be useful for people and institutions in North Sami and Arctic local societies.

Target group

The research group is in its establishing phase and will test form and content during its first year. The  goals and target groups of the research are wide and comprise both research close to patients, research  into nursing practise, research which shows the improvement potential in structural relations in the health care services, research which contributes to enabling studies where the students are and research which contributes to understanding and handling local challenges and elements of risk.

Goals

We wish to contribute to developing knowledge of:

-          Culture sensitive nursing and how the health services of the Sami population should be organised

-          How to use different perspectives of indigenous people’s methodology

-          Competence of local challenges with nurses in the districts

-          Exploring living conditions of the people in the districts and what creates safe communities

-          Spirituality and existensial relations

-          How knowledge development and education may be decentralised.

-          How the emergency preparedness may be maintained locally and how to cooperate across country and county borders.

-          The use of ICT and simulation in instruction. 

 

Network goals

We accommodate multi- and interdisciplinary projects. International cooperation with other research groups in arctic areas, about relevant topics and collaborative projects about health challenges across borders in circumpolar areas, are valued and important to our research group. Finnmark Hospital is a natural collaborator for us.

We wish to develop our network towards circumpolar areas, especially towards our contacts in the research group in Yellowknife, which has the same focus as us, but also towards other research groups.

Publication goals

We aspire to:

  • Stimulate to presentations via conferences, media, books and journals in Norwegian, North Sami and English.
  • Increase the publication frequency of subject and/or research articles in the 2013-2017 period.
  • Participate with newspaper chronicles with spherical topics in Finnmark at least thrice a year.

 

Project goals

We desire a large project for the research group.

We wish to participate in applications for local, national and international projects either as main applicant or co-applicant.

 

 

Research methods

The strength of our researchers lay within different qualitative computer gathering methods. Within the group we have competence of narrative analysis, grounded theory, content analysis, phenomenology/hermeneutics, indigenous people’s methodology, applied research and evaluation research. We also have some experience with survey and SPSS analyses.

 

Requirements to join the research group:

You are a master student or PhD candidate with a project which is relevant for the group.

You are an academic employee at UiT, at Northern Norway Regional Health Authority, Finnmark Hospital or another institution with R&D time and/or an ongoing project which is relevant for the group..

Associated members (participants without project and funding, or participants who are full members of other research groups) will be approved by the research group leader.