Cayetana Ruiz Zaldíbar is doing the doctorate in the School of Nursing at the University of Navarra. Her research deals with topics related to child health promotion. With the goal to continue deepening her work she is at the University of Uppsala, in Sweden, where she is going to stay for three months. In a brief interview she has told about her experience.

Could you briefly explain the topic of your thesis ?
My thesis is framed within child health promotion. I am currently designing a positive "parenting" program to provide parents of children ages 2-5 with parenting support for healthy lifestyles. I am interested in promote healthy lifestyles such as per diem expenses or exercise in childhood focusing on giving tools and skills to parents so that they feel able to exercise this task in the best possible way. For this, I am designing a pilot program that I hope to implement and evaluate in a few months with parents in Pamplona.

-Why did you decide to come to Uppsala University for research?
My stay here is because the design period of that program involves a lot of responsibility in making decisions about how to do the sessions, what subject of activities or what material to use. The group researcher of Child Health and Parenting (CHAP), led by Anna Sarkadi, with whom I am working, is an expert in development of parenting programs and therefore, a good reference when asking for feedback, committee and supervision in this period of the thesis . His observations and experience are helping me in both design and assessment, teaching me strategies on how to make things easy for the parents, what subject activities can be most enjoyable and what are the most effective measures to demonstrate that the program can have positive effects. I am gaining the knowledge and training necessary to make a positive result in implementing the program in our context.

In addition, Sweden is a country where the health and welfare system is very well organized, it is a good reference to look at in order to extract ideas that work. They have the university as a reference of research and they collaborate with it for the improvement of the population.

In this sense, what aspect would you highlight of the research in Nursing that is carried out at the University of Uppsala?
I would highlight that here they are very clear that a nurse does research and has a wide margin to do so. The doctoral nurses are very well prepared and are part of the teams, contributing a valuable work.

The CHAP is a group multidisciplinary where there are professionals from Nursing, Psychology, Medicine and Economics Sanitaria. All of them play a relevant role in the implementation and assessment of parenting programs doing different tasks such as instructing them, evaluating them or demonstrating the short and long term cost-effectiveness of these interventions. On the other hand, they have a directcontact with the community. Their projects are implemented in Health Centers and schools in Sweden, being practically at contact with them every week. In addition, they work side by side with other important researchers in this area coming from countries like Australia where they also have a great infrastructure for the development of this subject of programs. All this allows them to have a very powerful research and a great impact on both the academic community and the population.

-Finally, how has your adaptation to Sweden been?
My day to day life is similar to Spain, although with different nuances, mainly due to the climate and the lack of light. I usually get up, have breakfast, get ready and "layer up" since during these months we are always at sub-zero temperatures. I have been struck by the flexibility at work, it is possible to work from home if for example you have a sick family member. As long as you get the objectives right, there is flexibility. And as for language, Swedish is difficult, I can only say a few words, but everyone here speaks perfect English.