In Sweden the Health and Medical Services Act emphasises that patients’ knowledge should be respected and patients should participate and have influence over what happens to them. For hospitalized children we have standards in order to safeguard their needs. There is an adult interest in children’s safety during hospitalizations. Parents play an important and significant role in their child’s recovery and healthy development. Likewise nurses find it important to inform and prepare children and work in trustful relationships with parents. With the best of intentions adults want to advocate for the small child and consider themselves as competent to convey the child’s perspective. But, having a child-focus in situations is not the same thing as obtaining the child’s perspective. According to the Child Convention, even small children have the right in every situation to voice their needs and to be listened to from their own competence and experience. This study aimed to research small children’s (3-6 years old) expressions of activities (action and voice) as participation in situations on a paediatric day care ward.
The method was qualitative using the video technique. After informed consent was obtained from the parents and the children (n=10) they were followed by the video camera while they interacted with the nurses in a variety of situations. The transcribed material was analyzed through qualitative latent content analysis.
The analysis is still in process, but a preliminary result shows that the small children express their wish to participate with activities in a prolonged time consuming process.