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Several single factors have been identified as related to coping with trauma and as protective factors. Several studies emphasize the importance of personality, core beliefs, coping strategies and social support. However little attention has been paid to resiliency. The aim of the study was to identify some determinants of an individual's resiliency after experienced traumatic life events, and to address the issue of its relationship to personality characteristics, psychopathology, coping resources and strategies, social support, sense of coherence and quality of life. In the present study, a convenience sample of 100 Iranian refugees, 66 males and 34 females in the age range of 18-65 were investigated. All the subjects have experienced one or several traumatic life events as soldiers, political prisoners or have been victims of torture or have escaped from the country in a stressful way. At the time of the present investigation the mean time living in Sweden was for male subject's 12.8 years and for female 11.8. Nine instruments were administered during individual sessions, Temperament, Character Inventory (TCI), The EMBU (Swedish acronym for own memories concerning upbringing), The Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90 – R), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Interview Schedule of Social Interaction (ISSI), Coping Resources Inventory (CRI), The Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS), WHOQoL Group, 1995 (WHOQoL-100), The Sense of Coherence Scale (SoC). Several significant associations were found between personality temperament and character, parental rearing and psychopathology. When experiences of parental rearing were investigated in relation to psychopathology, male subjects scored high on parental rejection and were also more depressed compared to females. Although the individuals in the sample suffered from depression or anxiety, there were individuals that had adapted them-self well with the new life in Sweden and its demands. Nineteen percent of subjects who had low harm avoidance and high self directedness received more social support, had better coping strategies, higher sense of coherence and finally a better quality of life. This dissertation underscores the importance of multiple indicators when trying to understand resiliency. Personality traits, parental rearing, coping resources, social support and sense of coherence were the strongest predictors for resiliency. Having a systemic perspective helps to explain why some individuals are healthy and resilient despite traumatic life events, escaping from home country, applying for asylum, establishing a new home, learning new languages, to study and stablish and develop new bonds.

We investigated relationships between temperament, character, and anger experience, control, and expression. Police trainees (N = 103) completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (Cloninger, Przybeck, Svrakic, & Wetzel, 1994), the Symptom Checklist 90-R (SCR-90-R; Derogatis,
1994), and the State Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI-2, Spielberger, 1999). Personality scores were of greater significance compared to SCL-90-R scores for most of the STAXI-2 subscales while the scores of both personality and mental health contributed by a similar amount to trait
anger. Temperament subscales explained a much greater amount of anger expression-in variance while variance of character subscales explained more of the variance in anger V, angry reaction, state, and trait anger. Character was found to be superior to temperament in the determination of anger,
supporting a cognitively focused definition of anger.

Many countries in the European Union (EU)—among them Sweden—are engaged in accelerated removals of refugees, including unaccompanied, asylum-seeking refugee children. Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), international directives and national policies prescribe that the dignity of refugees must be respected when they are forcibly repatriated to their countries of origin. Simultaneously however, the government demands that police services improve their efficiency by continuously increasing the number of forced repatriations, something that prompts a question on the relationship between efficiency and dignity. To what extent is there a conflict between these two goals? Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is to explore and analyse how Swedish police officers perceive their participation in forced repatriations of unaccompanied, asylum-seeking refugee children. Interviews with police officers were conducted and analysed drawing on Lipsky's street-level bureaucracy perspective. The findings show that police officers use discretion to create individual perceptions of what constitutes an efficient and dignified repatriation. One main conclusion is that they perceive no conflict between efficiency and dignity. The police officers' own interpretations of what dignity is make it cognitively possible for them to combine efficiency and dignity.

Client violence towards social workers and its impact on their practice, and physical and psychological health, as well as the importance of coping as a factor in health outcomes, are well documented. However, there is a dearth of studies concerning these issues in Iran. We conducted
a national survey of 390 social workers in Iran, and employed structural equation modeling to test the potential mediating role of coping strategies on the relationship between violence and health outcomes. Active coping was used more than passive coping and the use of active coping had a
direct positive effect on health. Results indicate that the two coping behaviors are related and the success of each depends on the other. We discuss our findings with special regard to the context of social work in Iran.

AbstractSettling in a new host country as an unaccompanied minor holds a lot of challenges such as adaptation of new social norms, learning a new language and understanding a new culture. Social networks may foster good conditions for settlement in the host community but little is known about the availability, quality and significance of social networks for unaccompanied minors (UM) in Sweden. The aim of this qualitative grounded-theory situational study was to explore experiences of social networks among UM and the significance of those networks for becoming established in Sweden, based on data from in-depth interviews with 11 young persons. Unaccompanied young persons were broadly found to be involved in three different kinds of networks: professional carers, like-ethnic friends and 'Swedes' in general. Networks with professionals (i.e. linking social capital) were perceived as both a secure base and a source of rejection, and could either facilitate or obstruct the establishment. Supporting networks with like-ethnic friends (bonding social capital) proved to be the most available and important resource for becoming established, while access to networks with Swedes (bridging social capital) was in general low but still perceived as important for becoming established, not least for reducing language and cultural barriers.

BACKGROUND: The effects of war as well as military conflict include long-term physical and psychological harm to children and adults. Social relations and trust play a role in peace building and conflict resolution. Social capital is believed to facilitate institutional and interpersonal trust as well as safety and security, and thus may become an important resource in times of military conflict. OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study are to analyse how social capital may be transformed due to a military conflict in contemporary Ukraine and to explore the role of voluntarily services in this change. Further we aim to discuss the possible influence of social capital transformation on mental health in times of military conflict. METHODS: A qualitative case study design was chosen to explore it. In-depth interviews were chosen as a method for data collection. Informant's selection criteria were: either to be involved in volunteering activities in the city of Khmelnitsky (which is the place of research) or to receive volunteering help. 18 interviews were conducted. Informants were reached by snowball sampling. Interviews are collected, transcribed, translated and analyzed using constructive Grounded Theory approach of Charmaz. RESULTS: Our results show that social capital transforms during military conflict experiences. The changes happen both in cognitive and structural components since they are connected. The most important changes occur in bonding social capital, where new formation such as brotherhood, emerges and replaces previous bonding ties with family and friends. In addition, voluntarily acting actors (those who normally belong to bridging social capital) transform into relations with bonding entities. New forms of social capital are thus generated through the existence of voluntary services, and these networks provide essential social support in times of military conflict. Perceived support softens negative emotional responses to traumatic events. In line with the stress-buffering model, our results support that the formation of new social capital in times of military conflict may protect against the negative mental health effects of these experiences.

The positive health effects of volunteering are quite well described in the lite- rature; however, potential negative effects of volunteering are less explored. Volunteering got attention in Ukraine because of the recent political crisis that brought military conflict to the Eastern part of the country in 2014. In- formal volunteering has transformed into a formal one. In order to be able to organize volunteering that promotes well-being, it is important to have more in-depth knowledge about motives behind volunteering as well as the positive and potential negative effects of it. We explore the case voluntary work in of one of the cities in Ukraine. Military conflict context has its own specifics and different motives make people act voluntarily. There are goal-oriented, val- ue-oriented, affectual and traditional motives present in our data. The data shows that involvement in volunteering brings positive returns on well-being of the providers such as enlarging the circles of friendship and expanding the networks volunteers involved in; brings positive emotions into life; compen- sates the efforts and gives meaning to life. However, the negative effects of volunteering are also present. They are physical tiredness and a lot of time spent on volunteering activities; becoming disconnected from the ordinary (non-volunteering) world; unsafety; neglect of own needs and experiences of negative emotions out of the involvement in volunteering activities.

BACKGROUND: Social capital is one of the social determinants of health, but there is still a lack of studies comparing its significance for health in different cultural settings. This study investigates and compares the relations between individual cognitive social capital and depressive symptoms and self-rated health in Sweden and Ukraine for men and women separately. STUDY DESIGN: Two cross-sectional nationally representative surveys of adult populations were used for the analysis. Data from the Ukraine's World Health Survey and the Sweden's National Public Health Survey were analyzed in this comparative study. METHODS: The independent variable, cognitive social capital, was operationalized as institutional trust and feelings of safety. Depressive symptoms and self-rated health were used as the outcome variables. Crude and adjusted odds ratios and the 95 % confidence intervals were calculated using logistic regression. The model also adjusted for socio-demographic and lifestyle variables. RESULTS: Institutional trust is higher in Sweden compared to Ukraine (31 % of the Swedes vs. 12 % of the Ukrainians reported high trust to their national government/parliament). There is a strong association between self-rated health and institutional trust for both sexes in Sweden (odds ratio/OR = 1.99; 95 % CI = 1.58-2.50 for women and OR = 1.82, CI = 1.48-2.24 for men who reported low institutional trust compared with those with high institutional trust) but only for women (OR = 1.88, CI = 1.12-3.15) in Ukraine. Trust thus seems to be more important for self-rated health of women and men in Sweden compared to their counterparts in Ukraine. Significant associations between depressive symptoms and institutional trust were not observed in either country after adjusting for socio-demographic and lifestyle factors. A lack of feeling of safety increased the odds of having depressive symptoms among women (OR = 1.97, CI = 1.41-2.76) and men (OR = 3.91, CI = 2.19-6.97) in Sweden. The same association was observed for poor self-rated health among Swedish women (OR = 2.15, CI = 1.55-2.99) and men (OR = 2.75, CI = 1.58-4.80). In Ukraine, a lack of feeling of safety did not show any significant association with self-rated health or depressive symptoms for men, but it increased the odds of depressive symptoms among women (OR = 1.72, CI = 1.13-2.62). CONCLUSIONS: In general, individual cognitive social capital is higher in Sweden than in Ukraine, and there is a stronger association between cognitive social capital and self-rated health in Sweden than in Ukraine. Interventions aiming to increase cognitive social capital for health promoting purposes might be favorable in Sweden, but this is not evidently the case in Ukraine.

Background: Patrolling police officers engage in different mentally, socially, and physically challenging life contexts which may affect their life and health. The aim of this scoping review is twofold, to explore life contexts of patrolling officers in the European Union, and to investigate how their lives and health are affected by environmental characteristics within these contexts. Methods: The scoping review followed Arksey and O'Malley's methodology and included a critical appraisal. The environmental model within Kielhofner's Model of Human Occupation was used in the thematic analysis. The review was reported following PRISMA-ScR. Results: In the 16 included studies, two contexts (where environments interact with persons on different levels) were discovered: the global and the immediate context. No local contexts were found. Primarily, research on the social, and occupational environments, including qualities identified in these environments were found. However, some environmental characteristics within patrolling officers' physical environments were also discovered. Discussion: This review contributes to the emerging research area of police officers' life contexts, by mapping contexts and environments affecting their life and health. However, to get a deeper understanding of how officers are affected by their environments, interviewing them regarding how their different contexts affect their everyday living, would be important.