https://www.mdu.se/

Background: Movement is important for preschool-aged children’s development. Developing physical literacy at an early age can benefit children’s health and their relationship with movement and physical activity in the long term. This study aimed to explore preschool children’s perspectives on their physical literacy, focusing on its core components: knowledge and understanding, motivation, self-confidence, and physical competence.

Methods: A qualitative study was conducted at six Swedish preschools, with 25 preschool children aged five to six years as participants. Semi-structured interviews were carried out, and the interviews were audio- and video-recorded, transcribed, and analysed through a deductive content analysis.

Results: Children want to move and enjoy movement. They experience movement as connected to their feelings and they are motivated to move when it feels good and it is fun. Their motivation for movement also comes from inclusion in preschool decision-making, teachers’ participation in play, and opportunities to play with friends. The children express confidence in their movement skills, show awareness of their abilities, and display a variety of age-appropriate movements. They challenge themselves and draw inspiration from their peers in movement activities. Overall, the findings highlight the children’s awareness of their motivation, well-being, and abilities alongside the emotional aspects that make movement meaningful for them.

Conclusions: This study contributes to the limited research on preschool children’s physical literacy by showing that children’s motivation for movement is connected to how movement makes them feel. Thus, from the children’s perspective, the affective domain of physical literacy is recognised as central to their engagement in movement. Including children’s perspective advances the understanding of physical literacy and underscores the importance of considering the children’s experiences when promoting physical literacy in both research and practice.

Background In Sweden, general practitioners encounter nearly all children in health visits within the Child Health Services, and these visits have a predetermined agenda according to a national health programme. During the visits, the general practitioner assess the child's health and development and promote their participation. Earlier research has shown that pictorial support can help capture the child's attention during health visits, thereby promoting participation. This study aimed to explore general practitioners' experiences of using pictorial support to promote three-year-olds' participation in encounters within the Swedish Child Health Services.Methods The study employed a qualitative design, and data were collected through interviews with 20 general practitioners. Deductive content analysis was used when analysing the data.Results The study conveys that general practitioners experience that the pictorial support is a helpful strategy for listening to the child's views and acting on them. This strategy helps to establish a relationship with the child, promote their participation in the encounter, and conduct an equitable assessment of their health and development in these often complex and challenging encounters.Conclusion The pictorial support used in this study was shown to be a helpful strategy for general practitioners in promoting the child's participation and facilitating an equitable assessment of their health and development. These results suggest that using pictorial support can help general practitioners consider children's views and promote their participation in accordance with the Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Background Children participate in different health care encounters throughout childhood and sufficient information and a sense of security are prerequisites for the child to participate on their own terms. Pictorial support is preferable for providing information and creating a common understanding among children, caregivers and parents. The aim of the present study is to explore five-year-olds' experiences of using pictorial support during health visits in the Child Health Services from a participation perspective.Methods This study used a qualitative design with a hermeneutic analysis. Seventeen five-year-old children were observed during ongoing health visits. The children were then interviewed about their experiences of using pictorial support.Results Children's experiences of using pictorial support from a participation perspective are conditioned by the nurses through provision or limitation of space, as their guidance may provide the children with space to enable autonomy and a self-chosen pace or space to develop understanding. The nurse's guidance may also contribute to limitation of space, which develops resignation.Conclusion In summary, children's experiences of using pictorial support focusing on the child's opportunity for participation seem to be conditional, affected by circumstances in the situation. It is not enough to provide space and let children use their voice through pictorial support if they have no audience willing to listen or opportunities to influence the visit.

Introduction: Becoming a parent for the first time is a major life transition and this transition might be even more challenging during the covid-19 pandemic. This study aimed to describe first-time mothers’ transition to motherhood during the covid-19 pandemic in Sweden within the framework of Meleis’ transition theory. Theory: Meleis’ transition theory describes transitions in life, as the transition to parenthood. Method: This study had a descriptive design with a qualitative approach. Nine first-time mothers were interviewed using semi-structured telephone interviews. Data were analysed with deductive content analysis based on Meleis’ transition theory. Results: The pandemic and the restrictions in society contributed both facilitating and inhibiting factors for first-time mothers’ transitions to motherhood. On one hand, first-time mothers experienced restrictions with distancing as facilitating because they felt no stress about socialising with other new parents. On the other hand, they also experienced the restrictions of social distancing as inhibiting because they felt isolated and lacked support and role models. Discussion: Meleis transition theory was suitable to describe the transition to motherhood during the covid-19 pandemic. The findings may be helpful for understanding the complexity of first-time mothers’ transition to motherhood beyond the pandemic. © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

In this paper, we propose that physical literacy should be conceptualized in relation to, and as interconnected with, health literacy rather than as a distinct and separate form of literacy, as is often presented. Furthermore, we contend that this approach should be more centrally integrated into health interventions that target health in general, as well as specific aspects aimed at determinants of health, such as physical activity. Rather than focusing on isolated actions or behaviours, a literacy-centred model empowers individuals with the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed for sustained engagement in healthy practices. Integrating these literacies within intervention models bridges the gap between knowing and doing. This offers a holistic pathway to promoting lifelong relationships and responsibility for health and improving population health outcomes. We also want to draw attention to the importance of aiming to increase literacy at higher levels, as it is a variable that influences the relationship between health and poor social and economic conditions. However, it is important to engage in the difference between using literacies to displace responsibility on the individual and engaging in literacies as a component in interventions as an approach to sustainable action.

Student participation and engagement are widely recognised as key contributors to academic success and wellbeing. However, few systematic reviews have explored student engagement and participation in relation to the related concepts of wellbeing (e.g. life satisfaction). Drawing from 20 years of literature across four major databases, this article addresses this gap by reviewing research on participation, engagement, and wellbeing in higher education, with a focus on qualitative methodologies and the use of digital tools. It demonstrates how these methods provide a detailed understanding of the factors influencing student experiences. The systematic review also focuses on the implementations of digital tools (i.e. video viewing, annotation, and observation) in analysing student participation and engagement in higher education. The article highlights the importance of innovative methodologies and using video annotation tools for exploring student participation and engagement in relation to wellbeing, and thus may contribute to future educational practices that create inclusive and engaging learning environments.

Children treated with psychotropic medication have regular medication follow-ups with registered nurses (RNs) at the child and adolescent psychiatric outpatient care (CAPOC) unit, where RNs are responsible for ensuring that children can actively participate in their care on their own terms. This study explored how RNs in Swedish CAPOC units promote children's participation in medication follow-ups. Five focus group interviews were conducted with in total 32 RNs, and the data obtained were analyzed by qualitative thematic analysis. Three themes demonstrate how RNs adapt the medication follow-ups to promote children's participation: the first concerns balancing the needs and desires of both the child and the parents; the second involves recognizing each child based on their unique circumstances and interests; and the third theme is about how RNs adjust their communication to ensure that the child is given comprehensible information and has the opportunity to express themself. Our findings highlight how RNs promote children's participation in medication follow-ups and the challenges they encounter in accordance with child-centered care. In this three-way relationship with RNs, the child, and parents, RNs need to balance between the child's perspective and the parents' needs and desires.

This study aimed to investigate Child Health Services nurses' experiences of adjusting their parental support in response to parents' loneliness and concerns about their parenthood during the COVID-19 pandemic.DesignThe study has a cross-sectional design based on self-reported data.MethodThe study is based on a study-specific questionnaire created by the research group and took place in the context of the Child Health Services in two regions of Sweden. All 180 eligible child health nurses were invited to answer the questionnaire, and 130 nurses answered the questionnaire. The questions with fixed answers were analysed using descriptive statistics, and those with free-text answers were analysed using content analysis.ResultsThe nurses described parental support as having partly changed during the pandemic; the nurses also described a lack of parental support in groups and how the group-based parental support was replaced with individual targeted visits. Further, the nurses stated that, in encounters with the Child Health Services during the pandemic, parents broadly expressed feeling lonely and isolated in their parenthood.ConclusionThe results of this study can be used to develop parental support in child health services beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. The results shed light on the need for more person-centred parental support at the Child Health Services to avoid parents' feelings of loneliness on both an individual and a group level. The great importance of parenting support in groups highlights the significance of developing this form of parental support in Child Health Services to facilitate parents' feeling secure in their parenting and thus promote the child's health.Patient or Public ContributionNo patient or public contribution.

Objectives

Early parental support, provided by nurses within child health services, aims to strengthen parents in their parenthood. The aim of this integrative review is to describe communication in parental support in encounters between child health nurses and parents in child health services.

Methods

An integrative review was conducted. The databases Cinahl+ , MedLine, Psych Info, and Scopus were searched, 312 articles were screened, and 16 articles were found to be eligible.

Results

The studies included qualitative and quantitative methods, using interviews, focus group interviews, and observations. The findings show an overarching theme: The significance of mutuality in communication in a professional-parental relationship, further described in the following categories, 1) Authoritarian approach: a controlling manner, a neglecting manner, and a teaching manner; 2. Guiding approach: a counselling manner and a compliant manner.

Conclusions

The communication between nurses and parents can be understood as having several layers; the organisational context, the professional skills, knowledge, and experiences, and parents’ knowledge, expectations, and needs. There is a lack of studies of authentic communication between nurses and parents; thus, future research is warranted.

Practice implications:

The authoritarian and guiding approaches in parental support show the required skills a nurse is expected to have, but sufficient organizational prerequisites are also crucial.

This systematic review aimed to identify how children's right to health, connected to the principles of protection, promotion, and participation, and from the perspectives of children, parents, and professionals in preschool, school, and healthcare has been empirically demonstrated by international scholars between 1989 and 2021. Following the standards of PRISMA-P, two searches, in 2018 and 2020, were conducted in seven databases. In total, 561 studies were found and after the screening process, which entails reviewing titles, abstracts, and full text-versions, 49 studies were finally included. A deductive qualitative content analysis, proposed by Elo and Kyngas, was performed. According to the findings, protection was demonstrated as Being protected from harmful acts and practices and being entitled to special care and assistance. Promotion was demonstrated as Possessing of resources and Receiving of services, and participation as Being heard and listened to and Being involved in matters of concern. Conforming to the findings, although presented separately, protection, promotion, and participation could be understood as interrelated concepts. In summary, children's right to health was demonstrated within two major fields: as the use of their own resources, and trust and as aspects provided by adults as support and safety. This is the first review of studies, published 1989-2021, identifying children's right to health through the perspectives of protection, promotion, and participation. During this period, children's right to health has mainly been demonstrated in studies from a healthcare context. All researchers, policymakers, health workers, and politicians should include children in all decisions that concern them, to increase their participation. As children's health is closely linked to their physical, social, and cognitive development there is a need for more studies exploring children's right to health in preschool and school contexts in which children spend their everyday life.