Conference Proceedings - School of Nursing & Midwifery - Trinity ...

School of Nursing & Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin: 8 th Annual Interdisciplinary Research Conference
Transforming Healthcare Through Research, Education & Technology: 7 th – 9 th November 2007
Conference Proceedings
were areas of difference which policy makers needed to address.
Backett-Milburn et. al. (2006) investigating children’s (9-12 years
old) understandings of health inequalities in a Scottish city
established that children in this age group have a rather
sophisticated understanding of the role life circumstances play in
their health status. When they explored the meanings associated
with body image among teenagers living in poorer socio-economic
circumstances they concluded that teenage understandings are
derived from adult models rather than their own. Klien et. al.
(2005) also studied US adolescent’s knowledge and beliefs relating
to their use of herbs and dietary supplements and ascertained that
most young people are familiar with their use in the treatment of
illnesses.
Chapple et. al. (2002) examined how the health views of general
practitioners impacted on their patients views of health and
discovered that there was a difference of opinion concerning
definitions of health. Press et. al. (2006) scrutinized women’s
response to the use of prophylactic mastectomy and argued that
this procedure was of little interest to some women because they
saw it as mimicking the illness of breast cancer. MacIntyre et. al.
(2006) studied the role of socio-economic factors on health and
concluded that caution should be exercised about the how sociodemographics
influences actually contribute to health. Wenchi et. al
(2004) sought to assess the views of Chinese American women of
health and illness and found that exercise was an important
component of health while language fluency played a major role in
accessing health care provision.
On a more general note Shaw (2002) highlighted the difficulty of
studying the health beliefs of lay people because they are
inextricably linked to the pervasiveness of the bio-medical and
expert model that is so closely associated with the medical rational
and scientific method of health care provision. Hence the need to
study the meanings that ‘soon-to-be’ nurses attach to health.
The Study
Aims
To explore year 4 nursing student’s view of health and assess how
their observations on health differ from those reported in the
literature by lay people.
Methodology
A questionnaire was compiled from the literature review containing
96 items structured around spiritual, physical, psychological, social
and well-being. Example of items include; Health is; having a
- 589 -