Health Dialogue Experiences of Students, Teachers and School Nurses in Swedish Health-promoting Schools

• Published in: Californian Journal of Health Promotion
• Main Authors: Kostenius, Catrine, Lundqvist, Catarina
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: California State University, Fullerton 2021
• Subjects: Northern Sweden
• Online Access: https://journals.calstate.edu/cjhp/article/view/2641; https://doi.org/10.32398/cjhp.v19i1.2641

According to Swedish law, all students are to be offered health dialogues with a school nurse, which helps to promote students’ health literacy. However, research shows that the health dialogues are not being used to their fullest potential. To explore how health dialogues are experienced by school actors – students, teachers and school nurses. The 93 participants from 14 municipalities in northern Sweden wrote open letters sharing their experiences with health dialogues. Phenomenological analysis resulted in two themes with three sub-themes each that describe well-functioning health-promoting schools in which health promotion was seen as a shared practice among staff. In contrast, the participants expressed frustration or resignation with the challenges connected to health dialogues. When given a voice, school actors paint an informative collective picture of health dialogues. Based on our findings, we argue that health dialogues can \promote students' health literacy and enable collaboration between different actors within educational systems. Furthermore, promoting health in school must be viewed as a common assignment for all school staff, and support from school leadership is needed to systematically use the results from health dialogues to inform effective health promotion practice.