Children's perspectives on health and wellbeing: A concept mapping study

Children's needs and perspectives regarding health and wellbeing are rarely considered in public health care services. To improve preventive youth health care, the aim of this study was to gain knowledge about children's perspectives on health and wellbeing.

In a concept mapping study, Dutch children, 9-12 years old in primary schools (N = 82), generated ideas regarding health or wellbeing and sorted and rated these ideas on importance. Multidimensional scaling and hierarchical clustering were done in program R. Qualitative analyses determined the final concept maps. Subsequently, we conducted four focus groups about these maps with nurses and physicians.

For the concept "health", children (n = 33) generated 309 statements in 7 themes: 1) healthy living environment, 2) food and drinks, 3) important for a healthy life, 4) leisure time and relaxation, 5) physical diseases and cure, 6) necessities to be healthy, 7) love and affection. For the concept "wellbeing", children (n = 49) generated 435 statements in 9 themes: 1) negative influence on feelings, 2) feeling connected with friends and family, 3) unpleasant feelings, 4) positivity and enjoyable activities, 5) bad experiences and things, 6) problems with friends and family, 7) social media and gaming, 8) puberty and sexuality, 9) tasty food and drinks. Professionals (N = 16) had a more risk-oriented perspective on health and wellbeing than children.

Children have a wide variety of perceptions of what is important for their health and wellbeing.

Children's perceptions could inform preventive youth health care services to better adapt to children's needs.