Abstract
BackgroundOverweight and obesity in younger children could better be brought in focus through a deeper understanding of how Child Health Care nurses (CHC-nurses) perceive their work with the problems of overweight at the CHC Centers. The aim of this study was to elucidate the CHC-nurses conceptions of their preventive work with childhood overweight and obesity in Child Health Care.MethodA qualitative study, based on open-ended interviews, involving 18 CHC-nurses strategically selected from 17 CHC Centres in the southern part of Sweden using a phenomenographic approach.ResultsTwo categories of description emerged from the data: (i) Internal obstacles to the CHC- nurses’ work with overweight in children and (ii) External obstacles to the management of overweight in children. The CHC-nurses conceived their work with overweight in Child Health Care to be complicated and constrained by several obstacles depending on the nurses’ personal priorities, knowledge, responsibility and the absence of resources and cooperation, as well as the lack of uniform guidelines for preventing and managing childhood overweight and further a deficient management organisation.ConclusionNurses’ attention to monitoring overweight in children, and their initiative for prevention, is based on their conceptions of the obstacles that hinder them in their efforts. An increased awareness of the CHC-nurses conceptions of the priorities, their sense of responsibility and prevention practices is warranted. If measures in this direction are not taken there is a growing risk that overweight children will pass through the CHC without any formal recognition of their situation. There is an indication that the present level of the CHC-nurses’ preventive work with childhood overweight has room for improvement in several areas. It is suggested that the specialist education of these health care professionals should be supplemented and that organisation of the management of childhood overweight should be also revised at the primary health care level.
Highlights
Overweight and obesity in younger children could better be brought in focus through a deeper understanding of how Child Health Care nurses (CHC-nurses) perceive their work with the problems of overweight at the CHC Centers
CHC-nurses conceptions were related to perceived obstacles to their work with childhood overweight which are divided into two main aspects; (i) conceptions related to internal factors described as the way nurses make priorities, take responsibility and their lack of knowledge
This area has been previously explored amongst various health care professionals but, to the best of our knowledge, has not been conducted related to the CHC-nurses conceptions of the activities surrounding the prevention of childhood overweight and obesity in CHC
Summary
Overweight and obesity in younger children could better be brought in focus through a deeper understanding of how Child Health Care nurses (CHC-nurses) perceive their work with the problems of overweight at the CHC Centers. The aim of this study was to elucidate the CHC-nurses conceptions of their preventive work with childhood overweight and obesity in Child Health Care. The worldwide prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity has increased during the last two decades and is estimated to affect 60 million children by 2020 [1]. Overweight and obesity in adults is associated with several serious health issues such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes which subsequently can lead to an earlier death. There’s a growing movement towards the same divided into 7.8% overweight and 2.3% obesity. Among the local municipalities in Skåne there is a wide spread of overweight among 4-year- olds varying from by 4 to 5 times between them [7].
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