Högskolan i Skövde

Background: Obesity is one of the most common causes of illness among children and adolescents. School nurses work includes health examination and health interviews including growth follow-up, prevention of illness and health framing. In health interviews the school nurse have possibility to support student to a more helthy lifestyle.

Purpose: To study school nurses experiences of how they can affect overweight students to more healthy lifestyle.

Method: The study has been conducted with a qualitative method. School nurses have been interviewed by semi structured questions. The data from the interviews were analyzed by a qualitative content analysis with an inductive approach.

Results: In health interviews, the school nurse needs to establish a relationship that is built with a respectful approach in which recurring health interviews, the school nurse needs to establish a relationship that is built up by a respectful approach where autonomy is well preserved. Through encouragement and confirmation, the student can be motivated to reduce overweight if the family is involved too.

Conclusion: It is important to involve the whole family in health-framing nursing. School nurses experiences shows that it is important to focus on living habits instead of obesity.