ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

Competence and key interests: 

  • Person centered care & research
  • Qualitative and quantitative research methodologies 
  • Self-management of chronic diseases
  • Simulation-based education
  • Communication in health care
    • Theory and skills training
    • Shared decision-making
    • Patient decision aids
    • Health literacy
  • Implementation and use of health technologies
  • Task-shifting in healthcare
  • Home care nursing 
  • Postoperative nursing

In 2006 I finished my bachelor's degree in nursing at the University College of Oslo. After working in Oslo as a home care nurse for a few years, I started my masters degree in clinical nursing science at the University College of Oslo and Akershus. The master's thesis is titled: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for chronic pain in a web-based suit. This was a qualitative theoretical investigation of written situational feedback messages delivered online via smartphones as follow-up of patients with Fibromyalgia enrolled in a large intervention study. We published a paper addressing intervention fidelity in 2015 which was partly based on this work. The intervention study was led by Professor Hilde Eide. 

In 2013, I started my PhD-studies about hip osteoarthritis (OA) and the development of a web-based patient decision aid. The project was funded by the University of South-Eastern Norway, where I'm currently employed as Associate Professor. I defended the PhD in may 2020 at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, University of Oslo (UiO). My supervisors were Professor Hilde Eide (main), Professor Sandra van Dulmen, Associate Professor Heidi Kapstad & Professor Emeritus Arnstein Finset (UiO).

My PhD thesis is titled: The hip journey. An exploration of patient needs, treatment decision-making and psychosocial predictors of surgical outcomes in patients with hip osteoarthritis. It is based on three research papers. 

The first is a qualitative exploration of the varying needs experienced by patients living with hip OA. The second is a quantitative analysis of psychosocial predictors of short time recovery following total hip replacement in 223 Norwegian OA patients. The third is a qualitative observation study investigating potential barriers for patients' decision-making involvement in the orthopedic outpatient setting.  If you want to read and/or download my PhD thesis, it can be found here. 

A decision aid (in Norwegian) for hip osteoarthritis patients was published at the Norwegian health portal helsenorge.no/samvalg in January 2020. 

My position at USN is at the Department of Nursing and Health Sciences. I am member of an interdisciplinary research team at the Centre for Health and Technology and I lead the master's program Digitization and innovation in health and welfare services.