Adolescents' perspective on mental health and health-promoting dialogues

Sammanfattning: Young people in Sweden are satisfied with most things in their lives. But they are not satisfied with school and not with their opportunities for personal influence. The Convention on the Rights of the Child emphasizes the right for children to express their views freely and that their views should be given due weight. In the present academic essay adolescents, 13, 15 and 16 years old, have been interviewed about matters concerning mental health.The overall aim of the study is to increase our knowledge of adolescents´ perceptions, of mental health and of school nurses´ mental health-promoting dialogue. Focus groups were used in the data collection in study I, as well as in study II. In study II these were combined with individual interviews. Altogether 26 adolescents in study I and 48 in study II were interviewed. Content analysis was used in the analysis in study I, and in study II a phenomenographical approach was used in the analysis.The findings in study I include what issues to discuss and where the school nurse’s mental health-promoting dialogue should take place. The findings show that adolescents emphasize as most important what the school nurse is like as a person in the health-promoting dialogue, and that trust, attentiveness, respectfulness, authenticity, accessibility during school hours and continuity are established. In study II, the findings show that adolescents find mental health to be an emotional experience where positive and negative health is part of the concept. Family is perceived as the most important determinant for young people’s health, closely followed by friends and thereafter school. The girls and the boys in study II did not feel that there were large differences in mental health between girls and boys, but they saw differences in the way they act; girls are talkative and emotional, and boys are silent and tough. Age differences seem to be more important than gender in the adolescents’ perception of mental health.The findings are discussed in relation to gender and previous research. Furthermore, the voice of young people and ethical issues in interviewing young people are discussed. The findings are thereafter placed in an ecological model.