Children's understanding of health and illness concepts: a preventive health perspective

The present study examined beliefs about health and illness among a sample of 101 healthy children and young adolescents, from 8 to 14 years old. Respondents were administered a series of open- and closed-ended interview questions and were asked to draw a picture of a sick person. Various dimensions of health and illness were examined, including definition, concern, susceptibility, and locus of control. Several agelinked differences along these dimensions were found. Younger children were more concerned about their health and maintained a more external health locus of control, yet tended to rate their health more positively than older respondents. Younger children also tended to define illness from a more concrete, present-oriented, and symptom-specific, perspective. No effects of gender, self-reported illness experience, or family illness experience were found. Implications for the design of preventive health interventions and for future research are discussed.