Ulrika Pöder

Ulrika Pöder serves as Head of Department and Associate Professor in Caring Sciences at Uppsala University's Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences within the Faculty of Medicine. She is an active member of the Caring Sciences research group led by Lena Wettergren and maintains a robust research profile with numerous publications in 2024.

Dr. Pöder's research interests focus on healthcare aspects promoting patient safety, evidence-based practice, patient participation, and person-centered care, primarily within adult somatic hospital care and primary care including municipal care for elderly individuals. Her earlier work concentrated on psychosocial aspects of how parents of children with cancer are affected and their satisfaction with care. Her research spans nursing practice, healthcare organization, patient safety, and the psychological impact of serious illness on families.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals consistent themes across healthcare settings, with a strong emphasis on nurse retention challenges, medication safety for migrant populations, nursing home care quality, and digital health interventions for chronic disease management. Her work demonstrates methodological diversity with qualitative approaches dominating her recent output, particularly in understanding healthcare staff experiences and patient perspectives.

Dr. Pöder actively supervises doctoral students and research projects, including Nathalie Godman's work on person-centering in nursing homes, Cecilia Josefsson's diabetes self-management research, and Ann-Christin Hultman Lantz's nursing shift handover study. She has served as principal investigator for projects on patient safety culture and organizational factors related to transfers of older people between nursing homes and hospitals.

As a registered nurse with specialization in intensive care and neurosurgical nursing, Dr. Pöder bridges clinical practice with academic research. Her work spans multiple healthcare settings from intensive care units to nursing homes, demonstrating a commitment to improving care quality across the continuum. She collaborates extensively with colleagues at Uppsala University and beyond, contributing to the advancement of caring sciences through both theoretical development and practical implementation of evidence-based practices.