Knut Sundell
Biographic Data
| ID | 289562 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Knut Sundell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Knut |
| FAMILY NAME | Sundell |
| SIGNATURE | SUNDELL K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Gävle |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7754-7993 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 40 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Psychosocial Interventions Preventing Gang-Related Crime Among Young People: A Systematic Review
The objective was to assess the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in preventing gang membership and gang-related crime among children and young adults under the age of 30. We performed a systematic review and synthesized interventions targeting universal, selective, and indicated populations published between January 2000 and April 2023. We included 42 (seven randomized, 12 nonrandomized, 23 controlled interrupted time series) studies e…
Sex differences in scientific productivity and impact are largely explained by the proportion of highly productive individuals: A whole-population study of researchers across six disciplines in Sweden
Sex differences in human performance have been documented across a wide array of human endeavours. Males tend to exhibit higher performance in intellectually demanding and competitive domains, and this difference tends to be more pronounced the higher the level of performance. Here, we analyse publishing performance for the whole population of associate and full professors in relatively sex-balanced disciplines, namely Education, Nursing and Cari…
Efficacy and Effectiveness Research on Interventions in Sweden Between 1990 and 2019
Purpose: This article investigates the extent of effectiveness studies of behavioral, psychological, and social interventions aiming for measurable changes at the individual level in Sweden 1990–2019. Methods: The data stems from a retrospective analysis of published literature on effect studies between 1990 and 2019. Results: The results show an increase in published articles reporting on effect studies in Sweden the past 30 years, accelerating …
How Can Practitioners Assess the Value of Social Work Interventions
In social work, practitioners are often faced with situations in which they have to choose an intervention. A fundamental ethical principle of social work practice is to minimize the risk of adverse effects caused by social services. To adhere to this principle, practitioners must be aware of the possible positive and negative effects of potential services. There are hundreds of interventions currently in use in social work. Although there are a …
Adapted, Adopted, and Novel Interventions: A Whole-Population Meta-Analytic Replication of Intervention Effects
Background A challenge to implementation is management of the adaptation-fidelity dilemma or the balance between adopting an intervention with fidelity while assuring fit when transferred between contexts. A prior meta-analysis found that adapted interventions produce larger effects than novel and adopted interventions. This study attempts to replicate and expand previous findings. Methods Meta-analysis was used to compare effects across a whole-…
Numbers of publications and citations for researchers in fields pertinent to the social services: A comparison of peer-reviewed journal publications across six disciplines
Timely dissemination of knowledge is essential and fosters development of knowledge both within academe and the wider society, not least for knowledge that serves practises outside of academia. Here, we compare six disciplines which provide health-related knowledge that serve the health and social services. Most previous research compares the size and impact of the body of publications belonging to each discipline, which ignores the distribution …
Interventions in child welfare: A Swedish inventory
In Swedish child welfare, there are no mandatory guidelines on what interventions to use. Local authorities are able to set their own criteria for implementing or designing interventions. We carried out a survey to identify interventions in use in Children's Social Services and Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Care in Sweden. A total of 102 interventions were stated to have been in use, with between 31 and 45 different interventions for each of t…
Treatment Foster Care Oregon for Delinquent Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Interventions in Foster Family Care: A Systematic Review
When the ‘Golden’ Standard Should Be the General Standard: Response to a Commentary on the Use of Randomised Controlled Trials to Examine the Effectiveness of Family Group Conferencing
Recently, a critical commentary was published in the British Journal of Social Work in which the use of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) to examine the effects of Family Group Conferencing (FGC) was questioned and alternatives were proposed to better examine the effects of FGC. According to the authors, a critical approach towards the evidence provided by RCTs is warranted given the uncontrollability of the social reality of FGC and the genera…
Trends in Methodological Quality in Controlled Trials of Psychological and Social Interventions
Objective: There is substantial evidence that poorly designed and reported research can mislead decision making in clinical care. This review investigates the methodological quality of Swedish trials of a wide array of psychological and social interventions. Method: The review includes 302 articles published in peer-reviewed journals during 1990–2014, which evaluated a psychological or social intervention; included a randomized or nonrandomized c…
An Empirical Test of a Diffusion Framework for School‐based Prevention: The 21 Swedish Junior High School Study
This is a 3‐year, quasi‐experimental trial of an intervention diffusion framework. There were 11 intervention and 10 control junior high schools located in either a large Swedish city or the Swedish countryside. Multilevel structural equation modeling was used to evaluate a 2‐level model (1,337 students nested in 85 classrooms) for each outcome domain: internalizing and externalizing problems, substance use, socioemotional competence, and percept…
Graffiti: A Precursor to Future Deviant Behavior during Adolescence
This study examines if graffiti initiation leads to greater deviant behavior. Swedish students (N = 1,010) completed questionnaires in grades 7, 8, and 9 (aged 14 to 16 years). Students who initiated tagging or graffiti art in grade 8 consistently reported higher rates of deviant behavior 12 months later. However, graffiti initiation did not increase the likelihood of most behaviors after the effect of confounding factors from the individual, pee…
Outcome Studies of Social, Behavioral, and Educational Interventions: Emerging Issues and Challenges
This collection of articles elaborates on various aspects of outcome studies. Outcome studies feed and nurture the field of social work and other human services professions with evidence on what works. Outcome studies are designed to measure and understand the effectiveness of social, behavioral, and educational interventions. The ultimate purpose of social work action is change; that is, intended betterment of living conditions of a client, a fa…
Multisystemic therapy with conductdisordered young people: Stability of treatment outcomes two years after intake
The transfer of successful interventions between different contexts is of increasing interest to policy makers, practitioners and researchers. This study considers the findings of a Swedish trial of multisystemic therapy (MST) in relation to the findings of other such trials in the US and Norway. The trial assessed treatment outcomes two years after referral to MST or treatment as usual (TAU) for 156 young people meeting the diagnostic criteria f…
From Opinion-Based to Evidence-Based Social Work: The Swedish Case
This article presents an account of Sweden’s Institute for Evidence-Based Social Work Practice (IMS), located in Stockholm, Sweden. The article places IMS in the context of making Swedish social care services less opinion-based and more evidence-based. The institute is an example of how policy-driven processes promote the use of evidence-based practices in this European nation. The article includes presentations of history, organization, and prod…
Multisystemic therapy project in Sweden: What factors affect the tendency of social workers to refer subjects to the research project
This article examines some of the factors that may have affected the tendency for social workers to refer adolescents to a randomised controlled study of multisystemic therapy (MST). If we are to improve integration between researchers and the clinical setting in the future, it is important to consider those factors that affect implementation of research projects and evidence‐based treatment methods. Evidence‐based methods that lack the support o…
Child protection in Stockholm: A local cohort study on childhood prevalence of investigations and service delivery
Former Stockholm child protection cases as young adults: Do outcomes differ between those that received services and those that did not
Social workers’ attitudes towards family group conferences in Sweden and the UK
The New Zealand family group conference (FGC) approach to decision making in child welfare and protection has attracted strong interest among policy makers and professionals all over the world. While New Zealand’s legislation makes use of FGCs more or less mandatory in child protection, other countries permit social workers to refer families to an FGC at their own discretion. Knowledge about social workers’ attitudes towards the model is thus par…
Examining Swedish profit and nonprofit child care: The relationships between adult-to-child ratio, age composition in child care classes, teaching and children’s social and cognitive achievements
From Opinion-Based to Evidence-Based Social Work: The Swedish Case
This article presents an account of Sweden’s Institute for Evidence-Based Social Work Practice (IMS), located in Stockholm, Sweden. The article places IMS in the context of making Swedish social care services less opinion-based and more evidence-based. The institute is an example of how policy-driven processes promote the use of evidence-based practices in this European nation. The article includes presentations of history, organization, and prod…
Former Stockholm child protection cases as young adults: Do outcomes differ between those that received services and those that did not
Social workers’ attitudes towards family group conferences in Sweden and the UK
The New Zealand family group conference (FGC) approach to decision making in child welfare and protection has attracted strong interest among policy makers and professionals all over the world. While New Zealand’s legislation makes use of FGCs more or less mandatory in child protection, other countries permit social workers to refer families to an FGC at their own discretion. Knowledge about social workers’ attitudes towards the model is thus par…
Adapted, Adopted, and Novel Interventions: A Whole-Population Meta-Analytic Replication of Intervention Effects
Background A challenge to implementation is management of the adaptation-fidelity dilemma or the balance between adopting an intervention with fidelity while assuring fit when transferred between contexts. A prior meta-analysis found that adapted interventions produce larger effects than novel and adopted interventions. This study attempts to replicate and expand previous findings. Methods Meta-analysis was used to compare effects across a whole-…
Graffiti: A Precursor to Future Deviant Behavior during Adolescence
This study examines if graffiti initiation leads to greater deviant behavior. Swedish students (N = 1,010) completed questionnaires in grades 7, 8, and 9 (aged 14 to 16 years). Students who initiated tagging or graffiti art in grade 8 consistently reported higher rates of deviant behavior 12 months later. However, graffiti initiation did not increase the likelihood of most behaviors after the effect of confounding factors from the individual, pee…
Child protection in Stockholm: A local cohort study on childhood prevalence of investigations and service delivery
How Can Practitioners Assess the Value of Social Work Interventions
In social work, practitioners are often faced with situations in which they have to choose an intervention. A fundamental ethical principle of social work practice is to minimize the risk of adverse effects caused by social services. To adhere to this principle, practitioners must be aware of the possible positive and negative effects of potential services. There are hundreds of interventions currently in use in social work. Although there are a …
Interventions in child welfare: A Swedish inventory
In Swedish child welfare, there are no mandatory guidelines on what interventions to use. Local authorities are able to set their own criteria for implementing or designing interventions. We carried out a survey to identify interventions in use in Children's Social Services and Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Care in Sweden. A total of 102 interventions were stated to have been in use, with between 31 and 45 different interventions for each of t…
Trends in Methodological Quality in Controlled Trials of Psychological and Social Interventions
Objective: There is substantial evidence that poorly designed and reported research can mislead decision making in clinical care. This review investigates the methodological quality of Swedish trials of a wide array of psychological and social interventions. Method: The review includes 302 articles published in peer-reviewed journals during 1990–2014, which evaluated a psychological or social intervention; included a randomized or nonrandomized c…
Multisystemic therapy with conductdisordered young people: Stability of treatment outcomes two years after intake
The transfer of successful interventions between different contexts is of increasing interest to policy makers, practitioners and researchers. This study considers the findings of a Swedish trial of multisystemic therapy (MST) in relation to the findings of other such trials in the US and Norway. The trial assessed treatment outcomes two years after referral to MST or treatment as usual (TAU) for 156 young people meeting the diagnostic criteria f…
Examining Swedish profit and nonprofit child care: The relationships between adult-to-child ratio, age composition in child care classes, teaching and children’s social and cognitive achievements
Examining Swedish profit and nonprofit child care: The relationships between adult-to-child ratio, age composition in child care classes, teaching and children’s social and cognitive achievements
Social workers’ attitudes towards family group conferences in Sweden and the UK
The New Zealand family group conference (FGC) approach to decision making in child welfare and protection has attracted strong interest among policy makers and professionals all over the world. While New Zealand’s legislation makes use of FGCs more or less mandatory in child protection, other countries permit social workers to refer families to an FGC at their own discretion. Knowledge about social workers’ attitudes towards the model is thus par…
Former Stockholm child protection cases as young adults: Do outcomes differ between those that received services and those that did not
Multisystemic therapy project in Sweden: What factors affect the tendency of social workers to refer subjects to the research project
This article examines some of the factors that may have affected the tendency for social workers to refer adolescents to a randomised controlled study of multisystemic therapy (MST). If we are to improve integration between researchers and the clinical setting in the future, it is important to consider those factors that affect implementation of research projects and evidence‐based treatment methods. Evidence‐based methods that lack the support o…
Child protection in Stockholm: A local cohort study on childhood prevalence of investigations and service delivery
Multisystemic therapy with conductdisordered young people: Stability of treatment outcomes two years after intake
The transfer of successful interventions between different contexts is of increasing interest to policy makers, practitioners and researchers. This study considers the findings of a Swedish trial of multisystemic therapy (MST) in relation to the findings of other such trials in the US and Norway. The trial assessed treatment outcomes two years after referral to MST or treatment as usual (TAU) for 156 young people meeting the diagnostic criteria f…
From Opinion-Based to Evidence-Based Social Work: The Swedish Case
This article presents an account of Sweden’s Institute for Evidence-Based Social Work Practice (IMS), located in Stockholm, Sweden. The article places IMS in the context of making Swedish social care services less opinion-based and more evidence-based. The institute is an example of how policy-driven processes promote the use of evidence-based practices in this European nation. The article includes presentations of history, organization, and prod…
Outcome Studies of Social, Behavioral, and Educational Interventions: Emerging Issues and Challenges
This collection of articles elaborates on various aspects of outcome studies. Outcome studies feed and nurture the field of social work and other human services professions with evidence on what works. Outcome studies are designed to measure and understand the effectiveness of social, behavioral, and educational interventions. The ultimate purpose of social work action is change; that is, intended betterment of living conditions of a client, a fa…
An Empirical Test of a Diffusion Framework for School‐based Prevention: The 21 Swedish Junior High School Study
This is a 3‐year, quasi‐experimental trial of an intervention diffusion framework. There were 11 intervention and 10 control junior high schools located in either a large Swedish city or the Swedish countryside. Multilevel structural equation modeling was used to evaluate a 2‐level model (1,337 students nested in 85 classrooms) for each outcome domain: internalizing and externalizing problems, substance use, socioemotional competence, and percept…
Graffiti: A Precursor to Future Deviant Behavior during Adolescence
This study examines if graffiti initiation leads to greater deviant behavior. Swedish students (N = 1,010) completed questionnaires in grades 7, 8, and 9 (aged 14 to 16 years). Students who initiated tagging or graffiti art in grade 8 consistently reported higher rates of deviant behavior 12 months later. However, graffiti initiation did not increase the likelihood of most behaviors after the effect of confounding factors from the individual, pee…
When the ‘Golden’ Standard Should Be the General Standard: Response to a Commentary on the Use of Randomised Controlled Trials to Examine the Effectiveness of Family Group Conferencing
Recently, a critical commentary was published in the British Journal of Social Work in which the use of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) to examine the effects of Family Group Conferencing (FGC) was questioned and alternatives were proposed to better examine the effects of FGC. According to the authors, a critical approach towards the evidence provided by RCTs is warranted given the uncontrollability of the social reality of FGC and the genera…
Trends in Methodological Quality in Controlled Trials of Psychological and Social Interventions
Objective: There is substantial evidence that poorly designed and reported research can mislead decision making in clinical care. This review investigates the methodological quality of Swedish trials of a wide array of psychological and social interventions. Method: The review includes 302 articles published in peer-reviewed journals during 1990–2014, which evaluated a psychological or social intervention; included a randomized or nonrandomized c…
Treatment Foster Care Oregon for Delinquent Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Interventions in Foster Family Care: A Systematic Review
Numbers of publications and citations for researchers in fields pertinent to the social services: A comparison of peer-reviewed journal publications across six disciplines
Timely dissemination of knowledge is essential and fosters development of knowledge both within academe and the wider society, not least for knowledge that serves practises outside of academia. Here, we compare six disciplines which provide health-related knowledge that serve the health and social services. Most previous research compares the size and impact of the body of publications belonging to each discipline, which ignores the distribution …
Interventions in child welfare: A Swedish inventory
In Swedish child welfare, there are no mandatory guidelines on what interventions to use. Local authorities are able to set their own criteria for implementing or designing interventions. We carried out a survey to identify interventions in use in Children's Social Services and Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Care in Sweden. A total of 102 interventions were stated to have been in use, with between 31 and 45 different interventions for each of t…
How Can Practitioners Assess the Value of Social Work Interventions
In social work, practitioners are often faced with situations in which they have to choose an intervention. A fundamental ethical principle of social work practice is to minimize the risk of adverse effects caused by social services. To adhere to this principle, practitioners must be aware of the possible positive and negative effects of potential services. There are hundreds of interventions currently in use in social work. Although there are a …
Adapted, Adopted, and Novel Interventions: A Whole-Population Meta-Analytic Replication of Intervention Effects
Background A challenge to implementation is management of the adaptation-fidelity dilemma or the balance between adopting an intervention with fidelity while assuring fit when transferred between contexts. A prior meta-analysis found that adapted interventions produce larger effects than novel and adopted interventions. This study attempts to replicate and expand previous findings. Methods Meta-analysis was used to compare effects across a whole-…
Sex differences in scientific productivity and impact are largely explained by the proportion of highly productive individuals: A whole-population study of researchers across six disciplines in Sweden
Sex differences in human performance have been documented across a wide array of human endeavours. Males tend to exhibit higher performance in intellectually demanding and competitive domains, and this difference tends to be more pronounced the higher the level of performance. Here, we analyse publishing performance for the whole population of associate and full professors in relatively sex-balanced disciplines, namely Education, Nursing and Cari…
Efficacy and Effectiveness Research on Interventions in Sweden Between 1990 and 2019
Purpose: This article investigates the extent of effectiveness studies of behavioral, psychological, and social interventions aiming for measurable changes at the individual level in Sweden 1990–2019. Methods: The data stems from a retrospective analysis of published literature on effect studies between 1990 and 2019. Results: The results show an increase in published articles reporting on effect studies in Sweden the past 30 years, accelerating …
Psychosocial Interventions Preventing Gang-Related Crime Among Young People: A Systematic Review
The objective was to assess the effectiveness of psychosocial interventions in preventing gang membership and gang-related crime among children and young adults under the age of 30. We performed a systematic review and synthesized interventions targeting universal, selective, and indicated populations published between January 2000 and April 2023. We included 42 (seven randomized, 12 nonrandomized, 23 controlled interrupted time series) studies e…
Psychology (15 works) · Medicine (13 works) · Political science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Psychological intervention (8 works) · Psychiatry (7 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Social Work (7 works) · Population (6 works) · Social Work Education and Practice (6 works)