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Purpose: The purpose was to analyse the accounts of Swedish cardiologists concerning patient involvement in consultations for atrial fibrillation (AF). The questions were: (i) how cardiologists handle and provide scope for patient involvement in medical consultations regarding AF treatment and (ii) how cardiologists describe their familiarity with shared decision-making.

Design/Methodology/Approach: A descriptive study was designed. Ten (n=10) interviews with cardiologists at four Swedish hospitals were held and a qualitative content analysis was performed on the collected data.

Findings: The analysis shows cardiologists´ accounts of (i) persuasive practice, (ii) protective practice, (iii) professional role, and (iv) medical craftsmanship when it comes to patient involvement and shared decision-making.

Conclusions: - The term “shared decision-making” implies a concept of not only making one decision but also ensuring that it is finalised with a satisfactory agreement between both parties involved, the patient as well as the cardiologist. - In order for the idea of patient involvement to be fulfilled, the two parties involved must have equal power, which can never actually be guaranteed.

Practical implications: Cardiologists should prioritise patient involvement and participation in decision-making regarding AF treatment decisions in consultations when trying to meet the request of patient involvement.

Originality/value: Theoretically, we have learned that the patient involvement and shared decision-making requires the ability to see patients as active participants in the medical consultation process.

As long as we know, marriages have always existed in Europe. When Christianity came the rituals also came or changed. In, for example, Iceland, these new rituals were only to some extent accepted for hundreds of years. In most other countries marriage the Christian way became also a concern for the states. And the few existing non-marital cohabitation couples were "deviants" in the meaning that they did not follow the rules of the social institution of marriage. Many of these were based upon poverty. During the 1960's many of the traditional way couples lived were questioned, especially by activists, and changes came in some countries and in the beginning of the 1970s in other countries. The three Scandinavian countries were first with the changes. Cohabitation rapidly came as a social institution along marriage. To start with people in these new cohabitations were actively against the social institution of marriage and were in that sense "deviant". Soon many became followers and they were certainly not in opposition to the societal values. These changes will be discussed with a theoretical background on what marriage has meant and means today together with a view on a follower of the changes and cohabitation, namely LAT relationships.

A theoretical model for everyday behavior is presented based upon ideas of choice and chance. Argumented is that most of our behavior is a set of activities based upon chance even when we in everyday language we call them made by choice. The Self acts spontaneously when no evident alternative is there and the activities are by chance, they just happen. The theoretical model is applied upon the phenomenon of parents leaving their children for a limited time to earn money for a decent survival.