Occupational challenges and adaptations of vulnerable EU citizens from Romania begging in Sweden

ABSTRACT

Introduction: People from European Union (EU) countries such as Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria who beg on the streets have become a common part of the townscape in Sweden. While demanding situations in their home countries drive them abroad to earn their living, those who turn to begging still face challenges in their everyday lives. Additional knowledge is needed, from their perspective, about the occupational challenges of begging, as well as how they adapt to those challenges.

Aim: To describe the occupational challenges and related adaptations of vulnerable EU citizens begging in Sweden.

Methods: We used a descriptive qualitative design. Individual interviews with 20 Romanian participants were conducted and analysed using qualitative content analysis with a deductive and inductive approach. Results: Six categories of occupational adaptation responses were identified: Keeping the family tier intact despite distance; Dealing with shame and stress; Managing body and mind when begging despite the monotony; Living as cheaply as possible; Trying to get a night's sleep without drawing attention to oneself; and Seeking alternatives for earning their living.

Conclusion: Everyday life, when begging abroad, is filled with occupational challenges requiring occupational adaptations, for better or for worse, to sustain basic human needs. To further understand the needs of this vulnerable and marginalised group in society, human rights discourses that go beyond the individual level are needed.

简介：来自拉脱维亚、罗马尼亚和保加利亚等欧盟国家的街头乞讨者已经成为瑞典城市景观的常见内容。虽然自己祖国的严峻形势迫使他们出国谋生，但那些以乞讨为生的人仍然面临着日常生活中的挑战。从他们的角度来看，还需要进一步了解行乞的生活活动挑战，以及他们如何适应这些挑战。

目的：描述在瑞典行乞的弱势欧盟公民的生活活动挑战和相关适应。

方法：采用描述性定性设计。对20名罗马尼亚参与者进行了个别访谈，并采用定性内容分析和演绎归纳法进行了分析。

结果：鉴别出六类生活活动适应反应：尽管相距遥远，家庭层次保持不变；应付耻辱心和压力；尽管单调，但在行乞时仍保持身心健康；尽可能节俭地生活；试图避免沉湎于自己，而保证夜间睡眠；寻求别的方式来赚取生活。

结论：在国外乞讨时，日常生活中充满了生活活动方面的挑战。因此，他们需要适应，无论是好是坏，以维持人的基本需求。为了进一步了解这个脆弱和边缘化群体的需求，需要进行超越个人层面的人权讨论。

Introducción: Las personas de países de la Unión Europea (UE), como Letonia, Rumania y Bulgaria que mendigan en las calles se convirtieron en algo común en el paisaje urbano de Suecia. Si bien las situaciones difíciles de sus países de origen las llevaron al extranjero para ganarse la vida, aquellas que se dedican a la mendicidad aún enfrentan desafíos en su vida cotidiana. Desde su perspectiva, necesitan tener conocimientos adicionales sobre los desafíos ocupacionales implicados en la mendicidad y las formas en que pueden adaptarse a los mismos.

Objetivo: Describir los desafíos ocupacionales y las adaptaciones relacionadas de los ciudadanos vulnerables de la UE que piden limosna en Suecia.

Métodos: Se utilizó un diseño cualitativo descriptivo. Se realizaron entrevistas individuales con 20 participantes rumanos; las mismas se analizaron empleando un análisis de contenido cualitativo con un enfoque deductivo e inductivo.

Resultados: Se identificaron seis categorías de respuestas de adaptación ocupacional: mantener el nivel familiar intacto a pesar de la distancia; manejar la vergüenza y el estrés; cuidar el cuerpo y la mente al mendigar, a pesar de la monotonía; vivir lo más barato que sea posible; dormir toda la noche sin llamar la atención; y buscar alternativas para ganarse la vida.

Conclusión: La vida cotidiana de las personas que mendigan en el extranjero está llena de desafíos ocupacionales que, para bien o para mal, requieren la realización de adaptaciones laborales que hagan posible sostener las necesidades humanas básicas. La mejor comprensión de las necesidades de este grupo vulnerable y marginado de la sociedad necesita discursos sobre los derechos humanos que vayan más allá del nivel individual.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupational science
• Occupational adaptation
• Occupational justice
• Vulnerability
• Migration

The European Union (EU) is a region of high inequalities. In 2012, 124.5 million people, or 24.8% of the population, were at risk of poverty or social exclusion (Weziak-Bialowolska & Dijkstra, 2014b). Beyond lacking financial resources, poverty can also imply social exclusion with restricted access to housing, education, and employment (Pollard, Sakellariou, & Kronenberg, 2009). Among the European countries, Denmark and Sweden had the lowest proportion of poor people and Latvia, Bulgaria, and Romania had the largest (Weziak-Bialowolska & Dijkstra, 2014b). The principle of free movement is applied within the EU, meaning that EU citizens have the right to stay in any other EU country to search for a job. If they are not able to get a job, for instance due to their low level of education and limited skills in Swedish, they often end up in a vulnerable situation of homelessness and begging (The National Board of Health and Welfare, 2013). Therefore people, mostly from south-eastern Europe, who beg have become a common part of the townscape in Sweden. This phenomenon is frequently debated in the national press (Svenska Dagbladet, 2018), television (SVT Nyheter, 2018) and among people in general, with arguments ranging from prohibition to calls for help. The term “vulnerable EU citizens” used in the present study refers to citizens of other EU countries, e.g. Romania, who do not have a residence permit in Sweden and therefore have less access to welfare services (Regeringskansliet, 2016). Many of the vulnerable EU citizens in Sweden are Roma people from Bulgaria and Romania, who are one of the largest minorities within Europe and have a long history of being discriminated against and marginalized (Pietarinen, 2011).

Although there have been attempts to improve their fundamental rights and their social inclusion, many Roma still live in poverty, and experience social exclusion, discrimination and barriers to achieving their fundamental rights (European Union (EU), 2014; Weziak-Bialowolska & Dijkstra, 2014a). As with other people living in vulnerable situations, their human rights (United Nations, 1948) and occupational rights (Hammell, 2008) are threatened by social, political and economic factors. Roma people's health status and life expectancy is lower than the EU population in general (EU, 2014). They experience difficult situations in their home countries, with multiple challenges in everyday life including unemployment, very low standards of living (Engebrigtsen, Fraenkel, & Pop, 2014), and health problems (Gaga, 2015) that drive them abroad to try to earn money.

The majority want to work but, when failing to find a job, they combine begging with collecting bottles or selling street papers (Djuve, Friberg, Tyldum, & Zhang, 2015; Engebrigtsen et al., 2014). While some of the money they earn is used to survive and to pay back the travel costs, most of it is used to support the family at home with basic needs, school expenses or for building/rebuilding their homes (Djuve et al., 2015). However, being abroad is associated with many new challenges, such as being away from their children (Eriksson, 2015; Potrache, 2016), having daily problems with getting food (Gaga, 2015), finding somewhere safe to stay overnight (Engebrigtsen et al., 2014), and sitting still outdoors for long periods at a time (Gaga, 2015).

The occupational challenges implicit to these experiences relate to discrepancies between people's capacities, the occupational demands, and environmental resources and barriers (Law et al., 1996). Experiencing such occupational challenges, when ordinary responses are insufficient for mastering occupations and overcoming environmental demands, requires occupational adaptation, as conceptualised in Reitz, Scaffa and Pizza (2010) and Schultz’s (2014) clarification of Schkade and Schultz (1992) and Schulz and Schkade's (1992) earlier work. An adaptive response is an internal mechanism that the individual activates to create an action in relation to the occupational challenge. The greater the challenge, the greater the demand for adaptation. However, a person's adaptive capacity can be overwhelmed by, for example, stressful life circumstances (Schultz, 2014). In the occupational science literature, adapting occupations has been identified as the means by which forced migrants attempt to bridge the gap between the cultures of their home countries and the new country, in order to experience a sense of meaning and continuity in their lives (Huot, Kelly, & Jin Park, 2016). Further, occupational adaptation was used in reconstructing meaning and identity in early refugee resettlement, but prolonged occupational deprivation was a limiting factor (Suleman & Whiteford, 2013). The concept of occupational adaptation has also been applied in relation to homelessness (Cunningham & Slade, 2017).

Vulnerable EU citizens who beg abroad are not necessarily homeless in their home country, but often “temporarily” homeless while abroad (European Commission, 2013). To beg and to be homeless entails living in a demanding environment under extreme conditions (Kagiades, 2015). If the basic prerequisites for health (World Health Organization, 1986) are lacking, for example the possibilities to perform personal hygiene, to cook, and to sleep, managing everyday life occupations becomes very demanding (Djuve et al., 2015; Gaga, 2015).

While studies involving vulnerable EU citizens begging abroad have uncovered several occupational challenges, none have focused specifically on the occupational adaptations implemented in response to those challenges. Additional knowledge of both the occupational challenges, and adaptations related to these challenges, from the perspective of the people involved, is required. While valuable in itself, knowledge of their situation may be a useful contribution to easing their situation. Therefore, the aim of this study was to describe the occupational challenges and the related occupational adaptations of vulnerable EU citizens begging in Sweden.

Methods

The study used a descriptive qualitative design (Sandelowski, 2000) to capture the perspectives of the participants. Data collection was conducted between December 2015 and June 2016 in cooperation with a local ecumenical NGO, which acts as a forum for volunteer work and humanitarian actions for vulnerable EU citizens. The NGO offers breakfast and evening meals certain days of the week, clothing, the possibility to shower, and a spirit of community. From December to March, the participants had opportunities to shelter in small cottages at a campsite. The NGO also wants to create contacts and support change in the home countries of vulnerable EU citizens.

Participants

The participants were informed about the project by representatives from the NGO, both orally and in writing (in their native language), at a meeting at the NGÓs premises. Those who wished to participate signed an informed consent before the interviews started. The inclusion criteria were being an EU citizen, 18 years old or older, and with experience of begging abroad. The participants also had to be able to speak Swedish, Romanian, or English. Twelve men and eight women from Romania, with a mean age of 33 years (range, 19–64 years), participated. Their educational level was a mean of 6 years (range, 0–13 years). The participants described that they had left their home country by their free will but often inspired by relatives or other persons from the same village with previous experiences of begging in Sweden.

Data collection

Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted by two representatives of the NGO while a third representative, a native Romanian speaker, acted as an interpreter because all participants were Romanian-speaking and did not speak Swedish or English. The three NGO representatives had university degrees in health or social care areas and were familiar to the participants. The interview guide focused broadly on the participants’ view of everyday life and the resulting interviews were considered relevant for the aim of this study. Before data collection started, the authors met with the representatives to discuss the interview guide and to go through strategies for conducting the interviews. The recorded interviews varied in length from 1 hour and 15 minutes to 2 hours and 30 minutes, and were held in a private room at the premises of the NGO.

Data analysis

The first and last authors transcribed the interviews verbatim. Thereafter the first author started analysing the data using qualitative content analysis in two distinct phases, deductive and inductive, as described by Elo and Kyngäs (2008). Throughout the process, the analysis was shared and discussed among all the authors.

The preparation phase of the analysis started with selecting the unit of analysis, which was the whole interview, except for data on the participant's home country and journey to Sweden. To make sense of the data and the whole, the interviews were read through several times. In the organising phase, the first step was to develop an analysis matrix in which the content areas of occupational challenge and adaptive response were chosen in relation to the theoretical framework of occupational adaptation (Schultz, 2014). The next step was to gather data by content, i.e. belonging to one of the two content areas. Thereafter, each occupational challenge was matched with a corresponding adaptive response, and the data in the two groups were condensed. Finally, categories were created through abstraction, representing the condensation of the two content areas (Table 1).

Table 1. Example of grouping data into a categorization matrix

Content Areas		Categories
Occupational challenges	Adaptive responses
Far from family and difficult to be away from children.	I phone the children every day, it's a kind of consolation. I bought a telephone card and if I phone in the evening it's cheaper. My daughter tells me about her day in school.	Keeping the family tier intact despite distance
I feel bad, stupid, shameful. It's a very bad world, as we have to beg.	I pray to God. When I pray, I feel calmer. I keep quiet to avoid provoking them. I pretend I don't see them. If I feel too much stress I leave the place.	Dealing with shame and stress
The time goes by very very slowly and I feel bored.	I take a short walk when my legs and back are hurting. I think of other things to escape reality.	Managing body and mind when begging despite the monotony.

Ethical considerations

The participants were an exposed and vulnerable group, and there is always a risk of a power imbalance in conducting research with such groups (Wrigley, 2010). Therefore, it was of great importance to ensure the informed consent process was easy to understand and emphasised both the voluntary nature of participation and the possibility of withdrawing without consequences. The interviewer and interpreter were also given information, both verbally and in writing, of the importance of not putting pressure on individuals to participate and instead emphasizing its voluntary nature. In conducting the interviews, the interviewers were careful to maintain a friendly and open attitude and show great interest for the participant's views. Even though there are many challenges involved in conducting research with vulnerable groups, it would be unethical not to conduct such a study because then the participants’ voices would not be heard. The study received approval from the Regional Ethical Board in Linköping (2015/270-31).

Results

Six categories of individually implemented occupational adaptation responses to occupational challenges were identified. Keeping the family tier intact despite distance; Dealing with shame and stress; Managing body and mind when begging despite the monotony; Living as cheaply as possible; Trying to get a night's sleep without drawing attention to oneself; and Seeking alternatives for earning a living. Each category is described below, along with quotations illuminating the findings.

Keeping the family tier intact despite distance

The first category relates to the challenge of being away from their families, especially their children, exemplified with this quote: “My daughter and I had never been apart from each other before I came to Sweden” (P18). The participants described how they cried almost every day because they missed their families and how stressed they were to be so far away from them. The importance of their mobile phones for keeping in touch with their children was described: “I phone home to talk to my children, who give me comfort” (P7). Calling home was also a way to maintain their role as parents and to have a bit of control over the home situation: “I talk to her on the phone and she tells me about her day in school, and how she did on the tests” (P18). The participants also described how they supported each other in managing the difficult situation of being so far away from their families by creating a nice time together in the evenings with a meal, small talk, and laughter, and sometimes praying together: “We have a good time together when we have our meals at night. We talk about home, what's going on with the children and such, we laugh at funny things that happened during the day” (P1).

Dealing with shame and stress

The next category concerned the occupational challenges and adaptive responses towards begging. The participants described how hard it was to beg and how they experienced feelings of worthlessness, fear, vulnerability, and anxiety. Their opinion about begging was that it was exposing and shameful, and they did not want to do it but could see no other solution. To manage their situation, they described a number of specific adaptive responses. One common response was praying: “I pray to God. I’ve never prayed so much” (P12). The participants prayed for the strength to withstand their vulnerable situation, to be calm, and to get the money they needed for their children.

One way to manage the shame was to adapt their behaviour, most commonly by ‘reducing’ themselves, to make themselves ‘invisible’: “I don't say anything to people. Before, I said hello, but not anymore. I just sit here” (P3). The participants had also adapted their strategies to meet the challenge of different people's attitudes towards them, and they learned to assess whether people were likely to be friendly or not. If people were perceived as unfriendly, the participants did not look at or say hello to them, but instead pretended not see them. One of the participants had another adaptive strategy for feeling better: “I don't say anything. I start singing to myself, inside myself” (P14). To manage this challenging everyday life, the participants also had other adaptive strategies like crying, but also laughter and joking. There were also examples of the participants forcing themselves not to think about the difficulties in their life: “I try not to think about the tough part of my life; I want to focus on other things” (P4).

Managing body and mind when begging despite the monotony

This category reflected the occupational challenges of a boring and sedentary situation when begging, which was mentally demanding. To master this lack of activity, the participants had different strategies for what to think about. Some thought of their children, their former life, happy things, or the loans they had to repay: “To endure sitting still all day, I think of all the things I have to pay off” (P14).

Sitting still for long hours every day in cold and rainy weather was also physically demanding. To manage chilly weather, one of the participants explained: “I go into the shop to warm myself, and it helps if I get a hot cup of tea or a blanket from somebody” (P16).

Some of the participants adapted their begging spot by adding something to sit on – a bag or a box, or their clothes: “I sit on my bag and on my clothes. I have my jacket behind me, but it is still hard on the back” (P14). The participants described feeling general pain in their bodies, especially in their back and legs. Their legs fell asleep, and it was stressful to sit still for such long periods of time. To master this demanding situation, the participants used similar adaptive strategies. They sat in their spot for 3 to 4 hours before standing up, walking around, or giving themselves a back massage. One participant described how he exercised to keep fit.

Living as cheaply as possible

This category concerns the occupational challenges and adaptive responses that surviving with very limited resources entails. To get food as cheaply as possible, some of the participants described buying food together, sharing the cost, and checking for the lowest price each day. But their responses to this situation also involved strategies like not eating at all, only eating cookies, or just having a drink: “If I don't get hold of any food, I have to go hungry” (P18). “There are days when I just eat cookies and chocolate” (P5). “We drink energy drinks to keep our energy up” (P3). Some participants also described how they refrained from eating to save money: “Sometimes, to save money, I skip meals and I don't eat anything. I’d rather have money to send to my grandchildren” (P10).

The shelter provided by the local NGO closed in April, and this affected the participants’ opportunities to cook. They described the occupational challenge of lacking cooking facilities and how they had to eat outside in parks:

We sit somewhere outside and have our meals, on a field of grass. We buy and eat the food together. The best would be to have warm food, but we can't buy that all the time. Soup, for example – we don't have any place to heat it up. (P18)

Trying to get a night's sleep without drawing attention to oneself

This category relates to the period, after April, when shelter at the NGO was no longer available and the participants had to deal with the challenges of sleeping in cars, in tents, outside in the forest, or in a pillbox. They were afraid, for example, that people could see or hear them in the evening and at night and that the police would find them. Thus, they developed strategies for making themselves ‘invisible’ by waking up early so no one would see them and behaving in the ‘right’ way, by not laughing or making loud noises: “We don't want anyone to notice us on the beach. We don't want people to complain or get the police involved. It's better if they don't see us” (P14). “We do not talk to each other because we are afraid that somebody can hear that we are there [in the forest]” (P11).

Also, to remain invisible, the participants did not build a windbreak or make a fire, and they were careful to keep the area clean. The participants who slept in a tent took it down every morning and carried everything with them during the day. They also tried to hide some of their belongings in the forest during the day.

Seeking alternatives for earning their living

The last category related to the occupational challenges connected to the difficulty of finding ways to earn their living. The participants expressed a wish to find a job, but only a few of them were able to secure small, temporary jobs. Some participants asked people for any kind of jobs and made a sign with the text, “I do not want to beg and want to work” (P3). They gave examples of how they tried to find alternative ways to earn some money such as collecting cans: “I’m at my spot for a period of time, and if I don't get any money I start looking for empty cans” (P9); or selling a street paper (sold by people who are homeless or otherwise marginalised). Even if the participants found alternative incomes, some expressed attitudes such as “I don't enjoy begging, but I have to” (P1), as well as an acceptance of the situation: “Sometimes I get angry and feel like I want to leave my begging spot. But I calm myself down because there are no other possibilities” (P18).

Discussion

The present study sheds light on a variety of occupational challenges and occupational adaptations among vulnerable EU citizens from Romania begging in Sweden. Whether these adaptations and challenges are experienced as positive or negative is a matter of perspective and can only be determined by the participants themselves. However, from the participants’ explanations and earlier studies (Engebrigtsen et al., 2014; Gaga, 2015), it seems clear that the participants were not satisfied with their situation and experienced a boring, sedentary, and physically demanding life when begging abroad. The participants spent many hours a day on the street for little money and harassment was common, which exemplifies a life of social exclusion and with participation restrictions.

Similar to previous findings, participants longed for their children (Eriksson, 2015; Potrache, 2016) and used mobile phones to maintain contact (Eriksson, 2015). The possibility of keeping in contact with home allowed participants to maintain their occupational roles as parents and relatives, and to keep a bit of control over the home situation. Even though the participants have been forced by poverty to travel abroad to beg, retaining these important roles might be a way of maintaining part of their self-identity and the responsibilities and obligations associated with this identity.

One frequently occurring way to adapt to the experience of shame and stress was to pray. In a previous Norwegian study (Engebrigtsen, 2012), it was argued that the participants had great faith in mercy as a positive power that would be given to them. Religion was found to be a manifest cultural tradition in the participants’ lives and, as such, a tool for adaptation that offered a possibility to “cope with the world” (Ikiugu & Pollard, 2015, p. 56).

Another identified adaptation, of reducing themselves and making themselves invisible in order not to disturb other people while begging and living outdoors, may be an effective strategy for adapting to the environmental demands, but the question is what the consequences are for the participants’ self-esteem and self-identity. Similarly, Hodgetts, Radley, Chamberlain, and Hodgetts (2007) described how homeless people in the UK felt dehumanised and reduced to a forsaken physical object when begging on the street. Because people learn to acquire roles through the expectations others have of that role (Forsyth et al., 2014), there is a risk that the participants will acquire a role as invisible and see themselves as such.

To save as much money as possible, the participants sometimes limited their food intake, skipped eating altogether, or just ate sweets. This seemed to be a common strategy for saving money, as found in earlier studies (Eriksson, 2015; Gaga, 2015; Potrache, 2016). The risk for dietary insufficiency and its associated health problems is a known problem among people who are homeless (Sprake, Russell, & Barker, 2014). This is an example of a dilemma. On the one hand, skipping eating has unhealthy effects and could be seen as a negative adaptation. On the other hand, if the participants do not eat they can save money, which could have a positive effect for their children who can get clothes and books for school.

Considering the fact that the main occupation of participants in this study was non-preferred begging, we concluded that they face occupational deprivation (Whiteford, 2000). As described in previous publications (Suleman & Whiteford, 2013), prolonged occupational deprivation limits occupational adaptation, which in turn is “dependent on the person's previous environments, education, occupations and skills and whether these are transferable, adjustable, or obsolete in the new context” (pp. 206–207).

On an individual level, health and social professionals, and NGOs who support vulnerable EU citizens, could work towards strengthening individual's strategies for occupational adaptation or creating appropriate alternative ways of adapting. Occupational challenges might be reduced by strengthening individual personal factors needed to meet environmental demands and by helping individuals to adopt a healthy lifestyle. While this is unlikely to solve the primary problems of poverty and social exclusion in their home country, it might lead to reduced health problems while in Sweden. However, when tackling the needs of people who are vulnerable and socially excluded, theoretical explanations and practical solutions that go beyond the individual level are needed (Hammell, 2009).

There are several factors that are beyond a person's immediate environment and individual control that have an impact on the occupational lives (Gerlach, 2015). Consequently, the theoretical frame of occupational adaptation (Schultz, 2014) is not enough to understand the everyday lives of poor and marginalized individuals (Gerlach, 2015; Pollard & Sakellariou, 2017). For example, the frame does not explain how being poor and socially excluded is determined by socio-economic or political factors. Poverty, unemployment, lack of education and decent housing conditions, for example, are largely beyond the individual's control and thus need other theoretical explanations and intervention strategies.

Further, the core concept of occupational challenge is not defined within the theoretical frame of occupational adaptation (Schultz, 2014). The lack of definition of concepts within a theoretical frame makes it difficult to understand what the frame stands for. For example, in this paper we had to use Law et al.'s (1996) definition of occupational challenges, which are defined as a discrepancy between a persońs capacity, the occupational demands, and the resources and hindrance of the environment. In this paper the various occupations arising in the context of begging, such as keeping family ties and surviving with very limited resources, are considered to be occupational challenges, rather than begging itself.

Further research must expand beyond the individual perspective (Gerlach, Teachman, Laliberte Rudman, Aldrich, & Huot, 2018) to enhance understandings of how complex socio-historical and political structures have created occupational boundaries and lack of occupational possibilities (Laliberte Rudman, 2010) for this group. Furthermore, as the human rights (United Nations, 1948) and occupational rights (Hammell, 2008) are threatened for this group of people, a human rights approach to occupation could offer a valuable framework (Crawford, 2017; Galheigo, 2011).

Implications for Occupational Science

The present study gives insights into the occupational challenges and adaptations in everyday life experienced by members of a marginalised and socially excluded group of people begging abroad. These individuals represent a group that is invisible in occupational science research, and thus increased knowledge of their occupational situation, including their challenges and adaptations is vital. This is especially true since few studies of occupational adaptation have focused on vulnerable groups such as in this study (Johansson, 2017). The findings have implications for occupational science, showing that occupational adaptation is not merely related to health and well-being but in fact necessary for the survival of these individuals. However, future occupational science research in the area, as well as interventions, discussions and policies targeting these issues, needs to move beyond this individual perspective to be effective (Gerlach et al., 2018; Pollard, Sakellariou, & Kronenberg, 2009).

Methodological Considerations

This study had some methodological limitations that need to be considered when interpreting the results. According to Stanley (2015), the qualitative descriptive design (Sandelowski, 2000) is suitable when studying persons in their context and therefore suitable for this study. A case study design (Jónasdóttir, Hand, Misener, & Polgar, 2018) would have been an alternative, but the descriptive design was considered more feasible to start with. The participants were sampled through an ecumenical NGO that supported them with certain meals, showering facilities, clothing, shelter, and a religious spirit of community. This purposive sample might have had an impact on the study's credibility (Elo et al., 2014), but at the same time it gave us the possibility to get in contact with a vulnerable group of persons whose voices are seldom heard (Uliczka, 2015). While the voluntary nature of participation was emphasised, it is not known whether some participants felt hesitant to talk frankly due to their dependence on the NGO. The representatives from the NGO, including the interpreter, were known to the participants and had a good relationship with them. This might have affected the interviews and the study's credibility because the interviewers were familiar with the participants’ everyday lives and might have missed asking for important details or clarifications. Occupational challenges and adaptations were the key concern when the guide was designed. However, the final decision was to keep the guide broadly focused. This might have impacted the possibility of capturing in-depth accounts of challenges/adaptations. However, the broad focus captured a variety of the participants’ experiences of everyday life in Sweden.

The analysis process was described in both text and tables, which might strengthen the dependability of the study (Elo et al., 2014). However, the analysis was mainly conducted with a deductive approach (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008) based on a specific theoretical frame. In using this approach, there might be a risk that important data were missed and that the data became shallow. An additional weakness was that the definition of one of the core concepts, occupational challenge, was drawn from another theoretical frame, which might have an impact on dependability.

The results contain quotations reflecting the participants’ voices. However, in the translation process from Romanian to Swedish, and then into English, important meanings might have been lost and accordingly might impact trustworthiness. Difficulties in translation were also acknowledged in a recent study by Morville and Erlandsson (2016), who concluded that using verbatim translation during an interview makes no sense because the interpreter often will try to simply capture the meaning of the answers. This might give the interpreter the leading role in explaining the meaning of concepts and questions, thus carrying a significant risk of error. However, the above-mentioned problem was, to some extent, overcome by the researchers’ awareness of the importance of training and continuous support both to the interviewers and the translator.

Conclusions

This paper aimed to describe the occupational challenges and occupational adaptations of a group of vulnerable EU citizens from Romania with experience of begging in Sweden. The knowledge generated was intended to be a useful contribution to improving professional support at the individual level. However, an individual approach, such as explained by occupational adaptation, is of limited use to people in this vulnerable life situation, so there is a call for further contextualization of the issue in a human rights discourse.

Declaration of Conflicts of Interest

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and publication of this article.

ORCID

Sofi Fristedt http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2322-8115

Additional information

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, or publication of this article.