Black South African children's understanding of health and illness: colds, chicken pox, broken arms and AIDS

Development and Coherence of Beliefs About Disease Causality and Prevention

Guided by a naïve theories perspective on the development of thinking about disease, this study of 188 children aged 6 to 18 examined knowledge of HIV/AIDS causality and prevention using parallel measures derived from open-ended and structured interviews. Knowledge of both risk factors and prevention rules, as well as conceptual understanding of AIDS causality, increased with age. Younger children displayed more advanced knowledge in response to structured questions than in response to open-ended questions. Contrary to hypothesis, knowledge of causality was not more advanced than knowledge of prevention in elementary school. Moreover, correlations between the two types of knowledge were often nonsignificant except when the same method was used to assess both. Thus, methodology matters in assessing children's knowledge of disease, children's intuitive thinking is not consistently coherent, and it may be safest to educate children explicitly about sound prevention rules rather than assume they will infer the rules themselves from information about a disease's causes.

Young children’s meaning making about the causes of illness within the family context

In this article we highlight the ways in which young children draw on their family contexts in their meaning making about the causes of illness. Studies of young children’s understanding of illness causality have largely focused on the nature of children’s knowledge rather than the ways in which children acquire their knowledge. Seeking to advance a socio-constructivist understanding of young children’s conceptualization of illness causality, we interviewed five four-year-old children and their family members. Analysis of participants’ narrative accounts suggests that young children’s illness causality constructions are significantly influenced by the particular illness experiences, illness prevention messages and behavioural rules within families. By identifying and acknowledging young children’s meaning making within the socio-cultural context of the family, health practitioners may be better placed to develop effective health education programmes and provide enhanced psychosocial support for young children and their families.

Pre-school children's understanding of cancer: the impact of parental teaching and life experience

This study examined pre-school children's understanding of the concept of cancer and their parent's perceptions of their child's understanding of cancer. Parents completed a questionnaire and pre-school children were administered an interview. The results showed that when children indicated that they knew something about cancer, their responses associated cancer with something medical, bad or harmful, or sickness or an illness. Parents correctly estimated their child's understanding of cancer if they had talked previously with their child about cancer. Children whose parents reported discussing cancer were more likely to give responses indicating some knowledge about cancer. Some children reported knowing about cancer in the absence of parent teaching.

Kindliche Krankheitskonzepte

Zusammenfassung. In diesem Übersichtsbeitrag wird über den Forschungsstand zur Entwicklung von Krankheitskonzepten im Kindes- und Jugendalter berichtet. Es werden zunächst verschiedene theoretische Konzeptionen vorgestellt, die bei der Forschung zur Entwicklung von Krankheitskonzepten eine Rolle spielen. Danach wird auf die Entwicklung von Krankheitskonzepten in verschiedenen Altersabschnitten eingegangen. Es wird dabei nach Vorschule, Grundschule und Jugendalter differenziert. In jedem Entwicklungsabschnitt wird auf die Entwicklung der Konzepte über Krankheitssymptome, Krankheitsursachen sowie Verlauf und Behandlung von Erkrankungen eingegangen. Abschließend erfolgt eine zusammenfassende Diskussion der vorliegenden Befunde.

High school intervention for influenza biology and epidemics/pandemics: impact on conceptual understanding among adolescents

Understanding real-life issues such as influenza epidemiology may be of particular interest to the development of scientific knowledge and initiation of conceptual changes about viruses and their life cycles for high school students. The goal of this research project was to foster the development of adolescents' conceptual understanding of viruses and influenza biology. Thus, the project included two components: 1) pre- and posttests to determine students' conceptions about influenza biology, epidemics/pandemics, and vaccination; and 2) design an intervention that supports conceptual change to promote improvements in influenza knowledge based on these primary conceptions. Thirty-five female students from a high school biology class participated in a series of instructional activities and pre- and posttest assessments. Results from the pretest indicated that high school students exhibit a limited understanding of concepts related to viruses. Six weeks after an intervention that promoted active learning, results from a posttest showed that conceptions about influenza are more accurately related to the provided scientific knowledge. Although adolescents have nonscientific models to explain influenza biology, we showed that a carefully designed intervention can affect students' knowledge as well as influence the implementation of health education programs in secondary schools.

South African Children's Understanding of AIDS and Flu: Investigating Conceptual Understanding of Cause, Treatment, and Prevention

The present study examined children's understanding of illness in a peri-urban community in South Africa where AIDS is prevalent (N = 138). Results suggest that children were surprisingly knowledgeable about AIDS at an early age, and may have even erroneously analogized from AIDS to the flu. Furthermore, all age groups attributed different causes for AIDS (transmitted by blood) and flu (casual contagion). However, although factual knowledge about AIDS was identified among all age groups, there was no evidence of understanding biological causal mechanisms. The data have implications both for developmental research on biological reasoning in diverse cultural contexts and for the design of health education programs.

Children's concepts of health and illness: understanding of contagious illnesses, non-contagious illnesses and injuries

This study was designed to provide a more comprehensive picture of children's understanding of illness and injury than previous studies by interviewing 83 children from 4 age groups (4/5 years, 7/8 years, 9/10 years and 11/12 years). They were asked questions about how they defined illness and health as well as questions regarding different features of specific illnesses. First, it was found that definitions of health and illness became more polarized with age. Further, significant effects of age were detected for understanding of the specific illnesses with explanations becoming more sophisticated and accurate with development. This result held for almost every illness and illness feature. Lastly, cross-illness analyses showed that children hold differing levels of understanding for each ailment, e.g. understanding of injuries was higher than illnesses. These results contribute to health psychology literature on children's understanding of specific illnesses.